


The Sound of Thunder

by TimesNewRoman



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Also lots of fighting between Jacob and Evie, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Heavy Angst, It isn't a relationship between Evie and Starrick, Minor Original Character(s), Starrick is a creep, Torture, Whump, i can't believe i forgot that tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:01:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24270247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimesNewRoman/pseuds/TimesNewRoman
Summary: Evie has spent the last several months in London cleaning up after her brother's reckless path of destruction through the Templar ranks, nearly giving up on her own search for the Shroud of Eden in the wake of catastrophic loss. Still, despite everything, she would do anything to save her brother.Crawford Starrick knows this too.
Relationships: Evie Frye/Crawford Starrick
Comments: 61
Kudos: 53





	1. Shadow at Morning, Shadow at Evening

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: A slight alteration to the timeline has been made in that I've moved the Family Politics memory (or the "Uber Rides and Imperialism Is Bad" sequence) to the beginning of Sequence 9, before the day of the ball at Buckingham Palace. Technically, it doesn't change anything except for the day the memory takes place on.

_A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,_

_And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,_

_And the dry stone no sound of water. Only_

_There is shadow under this red rock,_

_(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),_

_And I will show you something different from either_

_Your shadow at morning striding behind you_

_Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;_

_-_ T.S. Eliot, _The Waste Land_

* * *

Evie hissed through her teeth as she ducked to avoid the sloppy punch thrown by the man across from her. Sweat dripped down her face as blood dripped down his lips. The man was clearly exhausted and on better days at the fight club, Evie might have put him down gently.

Today was not such a day.

A low, feral cry escaped her lips as she pivoted on her left foot, bringing her right leg up and hooking it around the man's neck, throwing him to the ground. In a fraction of a second, she shifted her balance to the right and brought her left foot down between the man's shoulder blades. He screamed in pain, although between the spectators cheering and her own blood rushing through her head, Evie barely heard him.

Before she had a chance to catch her breath, four more men were climbing into the ring from the crowd, some unlucky bastards who thought that today, of all days, was their chance to beat the infamous Evie Frye. It didn't bother her too deeply--everyone who had come against her at the Westminster ring today was simply fodder for the anger that roiled through her veins.

As the first man approached her and she drove her elbow into his side, she imagined it was Jacob, getting his what for. Punching him in his smug, stupid face as he had the nerve to ask her what she had been doing while he was "cleaning up the city". The man went down with a cry of pain as bones crunched beneath her hands. Like she hadn't spent the last God knew how long chasing after him and preventing outright economic collapse.

Evie caught the second man with a vicious right hook threw her weight back as she kicked him to the ropes around the ring. His head hit the wooden support and he slumped over, unmoving. She had put aside the reason she had come to London at all time and time again to pull the fragile bands of society back together after her brother had severed them. Between he and Henry--lovely, charming, utterly fucking useless Henry--Evie felt further than ever from the Shroud of Eden.

There were better ways to let off steam but Evie wasn't particularly inclined to use them. With two rapid blows to the last two men, she pirouetted and slammed her leg into their heads, knocking both men down and sending a ripple of pain up her leg that fueled the adrenaline pumping through her body. The crowd around her roared in admiration as Robert and his stupid top hat climbed into the ring next to her. He took her hand and held it into the air, declaring her the winner.

Her breath blew hot past her lips as the high from the fight began to wane. Aches she had been able to ignore in the ring began to creep up on her, and a deep exhaustion settled over her shoulders. Robert turned to her with a wide smile on his face, but his expression faltered upon seeing her own dark look.

"Miss Frye? Are you quite all right?" He asked. Evie could never be sure if he liked her or just the money she brought into his underground.

Evie closed her eyes tightly with a grimace. "I could use a drink," she replied, the words feeling thick in her mouth.

Robert gestured to one of the tables crammed against the wall and shouted, "Gin-sling for our champion, lads!"

She slipped beneath the ropes of the ring and landed heavily on her feet. Congratulatory faces followed her the few metres to a forest-green sofa where she collapsed. She didn't feel any better about the situation with Jacob or Henry, but she didn't have the energy to be angry with them at the moment, so it filtered out into the general chaos of her mind at any given moment. Her head hurt, her chest hurt, but the worst pain was that she couldn't fix everything. Oh sure, she had cleaned up after Jacob like some overworked governess looking after a spoiled Lord's son, but she had yet to be able to talk any sense into him. The only thing that had been a point of sanity for her was her progress in locating the Shroud.

It wasn't Henry's fault that the Templars had gotten away with the plans to the vault. Evie felt like blaming him anyway. The alternative was blaming herself and she was doing enough of that these days.

A waiter placed a drink in front of Evie and she seized it greedily. The liquor splashed across her tongue and she grimaced, pulling the tankard back. "Madeira?" she wondered aloud. It wasn't unpleasant, but it was a far cry from the gin she was promised.

"I thought Madeira something more suited to the tastes of a lady like you," a man said coolly from behind her.

Evie turned to see a tall man with dark hair in a crisp black suit. Behind him stood a woman, taller than him, and with a cruel glint in her eye. Something about them was familiar but she couldn't place where she might have seen them before. With the Rooks she and Jacob had gained a substantial number of underground contacts and it was his pet project, not hers.

"I don't know what gave you that impression," Evie replied, "Considering I've spent the last hour giving the ring a new paint job."

The man laughed, the sound chilling despite his brassy voice. "I see you're just as much an entertainer as your brother, Miss Frye."

Being compared to Jacob was the last thing she wanted right now. "Can I help you, Mister...?"

"Collicott. Edgar Collicott, and this is my associate Sarah Cairns."

Evie's gaze darted to a small pin on Collicott's lapel and suddenly, she could place the name with ease. She tensed, preparing for a fight even though her sore muscles cried out in protest. "What do you want?"

"Don't look so scared, Miss Frye, I'm here only to deliver a letter and win a few pounds." The condescending lilt in his voice set her teeth on edge.

"I'm not sure I want to know what a Templar has to say to me," Evie shot back.

"In this case, I think you may, Miss Frye." Collicott reached into his jacket and Evie flinched, but he only pulled out a small envelope set with a blood-red wax seal. The Templar cross was unashamedly prominent in the stamp's design. He tossed the letter onto the table next to her drink and raised a hand to Cairns. "Enjoy your drink."

Evie watched as the two made their way up the stairs, but even once they were out of sight, she didn't reach for the letter. There were only a few people within the order who could want to contact her and she didn't want anything to do with them.

"Evie?" Robert's voice pulled her from her thoughts. "Gin."

Gratefully, she took the drink from his hands and took a long draft, the sour of the lemon juice in the drink chasing away the now sickening taste of wine in her mouth. She wiped the stray gin from her lips with her thumb and set her jaw, picking up the small envelope and popping the seal.

"What's that, then?" Robert asked.

She didn't respond at first. The letter was written in a rigid script, only a few lines in the center of the paper.

_It comes to my attention that you are in posession of something I require.  
It should come to your attention I have something you cherish.  
I'm not a cruel man. 74 Vincent Square. Tonight.  
-CS_

Evie shot to her feet, holding the letter between her fingers so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

"What's wrong?" Robert asked, standing as well.

Evie re-read the letter again and again, the only conclusion she could draw crawling up her throat and threatening to choke her. Her voice came out as a half-whisper, half-sob. "Starrick has Jacob"

-

From the rooftops, London was beautiful. The low horns of boats passing through the fog on the Thames mingled with the crunch of gravel as carriages passed on the streets below. In the shimmering reds and golds of the sunset, even the muddy, smoggy streets of Southwark could be a thing of beauty.

But even here in the shining streets of Westminster, Evie could only see the darkness lurking in the shadows as she jumped a small gap between buildings. Vincent Square was all stately buildings and well-manicured gardens, but reaching out beyond what her eyes could see showed Evie the men waiting around every corner, no doubt for her.

She tightened her fingers around the necklace she had recovered from the monument. Perhaps she would have been angry, considering that once again Jacob's recklessness had put her search for the Shroud in jeopardy, but where her anger might have been was only thoughts of Jacob bloody and bruised for her sake. What had he done to get himself caught? He was by no means a careful person, but she'd trusted him to stay out of lasting trouble.

It didn't matter. She would recover the key and the shroud somehow. Jacob came first.

Evie lowered herself over the edge of the roof and dropped down, her fingers scraping against brick and stone as she made her way to the street. She could fight her way through, but if that was taken as a rejection of Starrick's offer, she had no doubt he would kill Jacob. Her chest tightened at the thought. No, this was the safer way.

No sooner had her feet hit the cobblestone road than four figures in the dull red uniforms of the Blighters emerged from the alleyway, each brandishing pistols and knives. Evie drew her cane from its place on her hip and fell into a fighting stance, but they were interrupted by a fifth figure, a woman in a black suit and bowler hat, the white sash around her arm bearing the Templar crest.

"Now, now, boys, let's not be so hasty," she said, a clear warning in her voice, "We don't want to scare off a guest."

Evie didn't lower her cane. "I'm here to see Crawford Starrick."

"You and the rest of the London," the woman said, "Why don't you run along 'fore you get into trouble you can't get out of?"

Evie set her jaw and took a few steps forward until her nose was almost brushing the other woman's. "My name is Evie Frye, and I am here to meet with Crawford Starrick. Need I repeat myself again?"

The woman stepped back and smiled broadly. "Well why didn't you say so? Come along then, Miss Frye." She started walking at a brisk pace and nodded to the Blighters who fell in line behind her and Evie. Her hackles were already up, and being paraded down the street much like a prisoner didn't do much to ease her mind. Still, if this was her chance to save Jacob, so be it. Her fingers went to the pistol on her hip, a gift from Sargent Abberline, and traced through her movements if she needed to make a run for it.

The house they entered looked like every other fashionable estate Evie had been to, save for the shields and paintings and swords hung proudly on every wall proclaiming that this was the residence of a Templar. That, and the uncomfortable number of guards leering at her as they passed. She hoped Starrick would honor the deal he offered, but she had learned the hard way not to trust Templars to uphold their bargains. If she and Jacob tried to run, they would be in for one hell of a fight.

Her unease only grew as they moved up the flight of stairs and she saw a guard posted at every window. There wouldn't have been a way in even if she tried, and there certainly wasn't going to be a way out.

Finally, the woman stopped in front of a solid, wood door. She didn't say anything, simply gestured for Evie to go in.

She was about to be face to face with Starrick, the man who had destroyed London and built it up in his own image, the Templar who had redeemed the order. The man who had her little brother.

Evie pushed open the door and braced herself for whatever would come on the other side, but what she hadn't expected was...nothing. She turned a slow circle as the door closed behind her, searching for something, anything in the room. There was a wall of wide windows with the curtains drawn, a crackling fireplace, a long teak wood desk, a piano. It was undoubtedly Starrick's office. But where was he?

She crept over to the desk, her footsteps light against the carpet even though there was no one there to hear her. There were stacks of papers arranged neatly on the desk and with a start Evie realized that this was her opportunity to rectify the loss of the vault blueprints. The Maharajah had promised there were additional blueprints of the vault, but still, even if she could just destroy Starrick's copy, she would be better off. Evie dropped to her knees and pushed out her hidden blade, working it into the seam of a locked drawer until the catch released and the drawer popped open. She rifled through the sheaf of papers for a second before cursing her own idiocy. A man like Starrick didn't keep important things behind just one lock.

Evie tentatively pressed her fingers against the back of the drawer, searching for a mechanism. There weren't any, but she did find a small key on a hidden shelf. She withdrew it and squinted at the desk. There were no other drawers. Still, she could sense that the papers were hidden in the desk somewhere. She ran her finger along the edge of the desk and gasped softly when her fingernail caught in something. Within the decorative gold underneath the top of the desk was a keyhole, hidden in plain sight.

She fit the key in, holding her breath as she turned it slowly in the lock. A small panel popped open above the drawer and inside, Evie could see a few sheets of folded paper.

"I would expect nothing less of an assassin than to immediately tear apart everything in their path," spoke a low, rich voice that scraped down her back like nails.

She balled the papers into her hand and with the other pulled out her cane once again, pointing it towards Starrick defensively. She had seen him in photos and paintings, but standing in front of him, Evie understood why the entirety of London had bowed down to this man. His piercing blue eyes glanced her up and down as if combing through every thought and secret she had ever had, and when he spoke, his voice was eerily pleasant.

"I am quite glad that you came, Miss Frye," Starrick said, walking further into the room to allow a half-dozen guards in behind him. "Although I must confess I am rather disappointed in you."

Something wasn't right, she could feel it. "I'm not in the mood for games, Starrick," Evie said, her words measured, "I have what you want. Give me my brother and it's yours."

Starrick smiled and gooseflesh rose up on Evie's arms. No, something was most definitely wrong here. "I've been watching you two since you came to London" he said, moving towards Evie, who backed up slowly against the wall, "An assassin coming into the Templar stronghold of England? You were bound to be noticed in a matter of days."

He stopped and looked down, crossing his hands behind his back. "What I didn't anticipate was the amount of carnage you would leave in your path."

Where was he going with this? Evie wasn't going to give him the time to explain. "I'll be sure to keep Jacob from collapsing the economy if you just let him go." The blueprints in her hands seemed to weigh a thousand pounds.

"Considering that you are decidedly the more intelligent of Ethan Frye's children, it is remarkable that you gave yourself up so willingly," Starrick said.

Evie realized what was wrong too late. "It was a trap," she murmured. They'd never had Jacob at all. She hadn't even thought to question it. When it came to her brother, nothing else mattered, and as Crawford Starrick had said, he was watching them. He would know by now that Evie's loyalties were to her family first, no matter what.

"I do hope you'll forgive me," he said, "I was so anxious to meet you."

He moved forward at a frightening speed, his hand closing tight around Evie's throat before she had the chance to react. She strained against his grip but couldn't find any leverage as he pushed her slowly up the wall until her toes barely brushed the ground. Starrick leaned in until his face was so close to hers she could feel his breath on her skin. "Now Evie, dear. The key to the vault."

She couldn't speak with his hand crushing her throat and he knew it. The pain exploding from her chest as she struggled to breathe was the only thing keeping her from passing out but the lack of oxygen was slowly, agonizingly pulling at her hold on consciousness. Her cane slipped from her fingers and hit the ground with a muffled thud, but still, Starrick held her against the wall. His expression was predatory as he watched her gag and claw at his arm with her free hand and warning coiled in her stomach. She had to get out of here, now.

Her strength was waning, but with what consciousness she had left, she pulled down the collar of her jacket just enough to show the key on the beaded chain around her neck. Starrick gave her a wan smile and pushed her harder against the wall as he ran a finger down her collarbone with his free hand, which sent a wave of revulsion through Evie despite the cataclysmic pressure in her chest. He stalled for another moment, clearly enjoying her struggling before yanking the chain from around her neck and finally letting her go.

Evie dropped to the ground, choking. Tears streamed down her face as she struggled to take a breath and she could feel the bruises already forming across her neck. She looked up as Starrick slipped the key into his pocket and turned to leave the room.  
"Kill her," he said, waving his hand dismissively.

Evie's eyes went wide as Starrick's guards closed in. With the loudest voice she could muster, she rasped out, "Wait!"

Starrick turned, an amused smile spreading across his face. "Whatever for, Miss Frye?"

"I believe these are yours." She raised her fist up, the crumpled papers in her hand just visible enough for Starrick to recognize what they were. He opened his mouth to cry out for her to stop, but it was too late--she turned and hurled the blueprints into the fireplace behind her and within seconds they were little more than black ash.

Starrick made a sound somewhere between a growl and a roar and moved back to Evie's side. He balled a fist around the fabric of her shirt and pulled her up with enough force that her spine cracked painfully. "You don't know what you've done," he hissed.

"On the contrary," Evie said with a smile, though every word burned in her throat, "I know quite well."

Starrick yelled incoherently and threw her against the wall, the back of her head snapping against the edge of the fireplace. She immediately felt blood begin to run down the back of her neck and she groaned as he continued his tirade. "I have worked all these years and I will not be stopped by you, Frye."

Then as suddenly as his anger started, an eerie calm expression replaced his snarling rage. "But I do know you, Evie. You're like me, willing to fight and to kill for this shroud and the power it offers."

"Not to use its power," Evie said weakly, "To keep it from you."

"Semantics." Starrick knelt and pulled her hair up sharply so that they were looking into each other's eyes. "No, I know you, Evie Frye and you would never destroy the only thing leading us to the shroud. Which means that you do know where it is."

A ripple of icy fear shot through Evie as Starrick spoke, his voice low and tempered and final. "And I intend to find out, by any means necessary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scene at the end of Syndicate where Starrick and Evie were dancing had a creepy sort of chemistry and my twisted writer-brain immediately jammed that into some semblance of a story. If you've gotten this far, I'll assume you've read the tags.  
> Obviously, I don't actually ship Starrick and Evie. I view it as similar to Jacob and Roth's 'relationship'. We all know why we're here :)  
> That being said, if you are here, thank you! This is the first time I've ever posted anything explicit and it's much darker than the things I usually post. I write these stories and then they go into retirement in my fanfiction folder, but I wanted to share this one since I wasn't able to find anything like it in the AC tag, so I'd love to know what you think so far. I'm a writer. I feed on validation.


	2. Fear In A Handful of Dust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! 
> 
> Thank you all for being patient as I worked on this chapter, it was a particularly difficult one to write for reasons that will be obvious. I spent a long time agonizing over basically ever word and realized that I would never be satisfied so have it as it is!
> 
> Please do note that this chapter contains a gratuitous amount of violence and graphic depictions of sexual assault (towards the end of the chapter should you want to skip it).
> 
> Stay safe out there!

_I will show you something different from either_

_Your shadow at morning striding behind you_

_Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;_

_I will show you fear in a handful of dust._

_-_ T.S. Eliot, _The Waste Land_

* * *

Jacob climbed onto the last car of the train, the ache of smoke still burning in his lungs just as acrid as the memory of Roth's mouth pressed against his. The bastard's last unholy Hail Mary apparently.

His voice still echoed in Jacob's mind. Why not?

He wasn't in the mood for one of Evie's lectures. Usually, he at least had the energy to snap back some retort, to feel like he was in control of a rapidly destabilizing situation. Maybe, for once he could get her to piss off. Not that it mattered. She always won their arguments anyways. 

But when he crossed to the car where he expected to find her, it was empty. He let out a small sigh of relief and sat down heavily on the sofa he had more or less claimed as his own and leaned down to grab a bottle from his "hidden" cache between the seat and the safe. Everyone knew where it was by now, but they knew well enough to leave it alone.

It was by no means good. But it was something. And it gave him something to do as he stared at the wall where he had pinned up the Templar network Starrick had built. His list of targets.

What did Evie want him to do if not eliminate the problem? Surely, his father had said something to them at some point about confronting the obvious issues. Besides, what did Evie know? She was too busy snogging Henry to know the difference between a Templar dead or alive.

As if summoned by his thoughts, Henry himself landed in the entryway of the train car in a panic. 

"Speak of the devil," Jacob muttered under his breath.

"What?" Henry asked, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath, "What are you doing here?"

Jacob spread his arms wide. "I ask myself that question every day."

Henry inhaled sharply and shook his head. "No, I mean how are you here? Robert Topping said you'd been captured!"

"Nearly burned alive, yes, captured, not so much, as evidenced by my gracious presence here." What was Henry on about? Jacob wasn't a fool and he was a good enough fighter to keep himself alive.

“Burned ali—nevermind, that’s not important,” Henry shook his head again, the desperation growing in his voice. "He said Evie received a letter from Starrick. That he was going to exchange your life for the key to the vault."

"The vault? Jacob asked quizzically. What was Henry on about?

"The vault! The vault that holds the Shroud!" Henry shouted, "Damn the vault! Where is Evie?"

Jacobs face fell and his heart started to beat faster. A letter from Starrick where she could only assume the worst had happened. 

Oh. Oh no.

"He has her, doesn't he?" Jacob asked, his own dread growing in his chest. He got to his feet, tossing his bottle to the side. "Damn it, Evie."

"She went after you, she put herself in danger while you were off cavorting around London." Henry's tone was far too close to his father's for his liking.

"That doesn't matter. Where did she go?"

"I don't know," Henry said weakly, "Mr. Topping didn't see the letter before Evie left, but—"

Jacob took Henry by the shoulder and pulled him out the coupling between the train cars. He had to put on the brave front as usual, for Evie’s sake as well as his own. "Well,” he said, gesturing for Henry to jump, “Let’s go find out.”

-

When Evie was thirteen, she fell into a ravine while exploring the woods that surrounded Crawley. She underestimated how far across she needed to jump in order to clear the ditch and ended up tumbling forward into a thicket of bushes with thorns the size of her thumb. The thorns embedded themselves into her clothes, tearing into every exposed bit of skin, but that wasn't what burned the memory into her recollection. Young as she was, she was still raised an assassin. Evie knew pain from a young age. 

No, the worst part of it all was what happened after she had recovered from having the wind knocked out of her and reoriented herself. When she tried to get up, bracing against the burrs digging into her palms, she found she couldn't. The briars held her fast, giving only a couple of inches when she struggled. It didn't matter that after a few moments of desperation she managed to grab her knife and cut her way free. In that moment, Evie had felt the crushing weight of being trapped and helpless and alone. Her mind had raced to the worst possibilities first and she saw in that moment a horrible vision of her mangled body laying in the ravine until it crumbled to dust.

Evie's hands were bound behind her back, already numb from the ropes that bit into her wrists. A dozen different aches protested every time she moved, but she did her best to ignore them. Starrick's men could beat her until she was barely breathing and she would keep her head up. In some ways, the pain was a relief. It kept her present.

It also served as a distraction from what she really feared, just like that day in the woods. She felt the terror as an ache in her bones. 

No one was coming to save her.

She hoped that Jacob or Henry would realize something was wrong, but even if they did, what would they do? Jacob had made his intentions to stay away from her very clear, and Henry on his own couldn’t be expected to take on Crawford Starrick in all his might. She wasn’t sure if it hurt more to keep hoping or to give up the idea entirely. For the moment, she was here. She was trapped.

The door to Starrick's office opened and she lifted her head enough to see who was entering. Starrick had left her in the hands of one of his lackeys, a giant of a man who clearly thrived on the sadism of torture. The pain in her jaw sharpened as she recalled the rising note of rage in his voice as he threatened to beat the smug smile off her face. Evie had continued smiling even after, though she could taste the blood in her mouth and assumed her expression looked more like a grimace.

But to her shock, Starrick himself walked into his office. Evie watched as a maid helped him to remove his jacket and he thanked her with a genuine warmth in his voice that made her stomach turn. Starrick played the role of a gentleman, but how many of his allies and supporters knew the truth behind his power?

Starrick gestured to the man who had been standing guard at the door who promptly turned and scurried off after the maid. Evie's chest felt hollow at the implication—Starrick no longer wanted anyone doing his dirty work. 

He didn't acknowledge her at first, instead moving to the sidebar and pouring himself a tumbler glass of gin. He turned to Evie, holding up his glass slightly. "Would you care for a drink?"

She scoffed. "From a Templar? I'd best not."

Starrick spread his hands in an indifferent shrug. "Come now, Miss Frye, I'd taken you for a woman of class."

"Tyrants have always some shade of virtue," Evie said, meeting his gaze with as much haughtiness as she could muster.

"Ah, Voltaire," Starrick said, leaning against the front of his desk, "A man who like most of his predecessors became lost in his own grandiosity and far overstayed his welcome."

"He championed the civil liberties of the lower classes," Evie snapped, "Something I'm sure is a foreign concept to a despot like yourself."

Starrick clucked his tongue. "Such harsh accusations, Miss Frye," he said, giving her a mocking frown, "Truly, you wound me." He tossed back his drink and set the glass aside, rolling his sleeves up as he approached the chair where Evie sat. "Let us skip the niceties then. The location of the vault?”

Evie laughed pointedly, already bracing herself for the inevitable consequence. Starrick didn't hesitate, pivoting as his fist collided with her jaw, throwing his full body weight behind the blow. She flew out of the chair, landing on the ground hard enough that the air was forced out of her chest, but before she had time to recover, Starrick hauled her up by the front of her shirt. She looked into his face and tried to summon calm despite the frenetic pace with which her heart slammed into her ribs. There was cold fury in his eyes, a steel that slid down her spine like a razor blade.

"Contrary to popular belief, I don't enjoy hurting people," Starrick said, his breath hissing through his teeth, "But I do expect them to do as I tell them."

"Pity," Evie shot back.

"Pity indeed." He wrapped his fingers around her upper arm and with his other hand, pushed against her shoulder. The muscles in her chest and shoulders twisted painfully as he slowly applied more pressure until she cried out, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth against the inevitable surge of pain from her arm dislocating. The strain grew to an unbearable point and her whimper of pain grew into a shriek until finally Starrick let go of her all at once and she collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.

He crouched next to her. "Shall we do that again, or will you tell me what I want to know?"

Evie tilted her head back so that it lay against the ground and swallowed hard before replying, "I'd say I'm ready for another round."

Starrick made no show of it this time. He stood and reached for her, his fingernails raking against her skin as he seized her arm again and pulled forward viciously. There was a pop and a ringing sound started in her ears she realized after a moment was the sound of her own screaming. A burning pain shot down her arm that bled into her chest and up her neck. 

Starrick let her fall back to the floor in a heap and pressed the heel of his boot against her collarbone. Her vision went white, strangled screaming still tearing its way from her throat. 

Finally, he stepped off of her and her cries trailed off into low sobs through her clenched teeth as she finally let herself breathe. 

"Is that quite enough?" Starrick asked from somewhere behind her.

She let out a horrible, twisted sound as she rolled over and onto her knees, looking up to him through the sparks that swam in her vision. "Go fuck yourself."

Her bravado was flimsy. She wasn't made for this. Oh, she could take a proper beating but it was Jacob who could shrug off the punches and keep swinging no matter what. Still, she would sooner die than give Starrick the Shroud. 

Starrick laughed silently before turning back towards her, grabbing her hair in his fist and bringing his knee into her chest. Another sickening pop came from within Evie's body and she doubled over reflexively, though the motion only exacerbated the searing pain between her lower ribs. She shuddered and suddenly she was freezing cold, like the time Jacob had thrown her into Tilgate lake and the shock of the cold water caused her muscles to seize up. 

Evie coughed and spat blood at Starrick's feet as he approached and he stepped out of the way with infuriating nonchalance. She bit back another sound as he pulled her up by her dislocated arm and shoved her back into the chair he had knocked her from.

"Are you ready to talk like civilized people?" He asked, a condescending smile twisting his face into a grimace.

"You'll have to do much better than that, Mister Starrick," she said, but her voice was weak from screaming and she felt exhausted already.

"Then you shall have it," he replied. Evie flinched as he moved towards her but he took a step past her. She craned her head to try and see him, but could only hear the scraping of metal against brick. "As I said before, Evie, this brings me no joy."

She hated the familiar way he used her name and hated even more how much it reminded her of her father, the way he would call out to her sternly whenever she did anything wrong. "I find that hard to believe, given the situation."

He sighed and she was almost glad she couldn't see him from where she sat. "It is born of necessity. The moment you give me the location of the vault, this will end."

"You mean you'll kill me," Evie said with a caustic laugh that immediately tore into her chest.

"Would that be preferable?" He asked, and again came the sound of metal against the hearth. Was he tending the fire?

"Not knowing I had destroyed London in my final breaths."

He moved behind her, leaning down so that his mouth brushed against her ear and she swallowed back bile. "Look around, Miss Frye. Is London really in as much of a state as you say?"

She pulled away from him. "I know what I've seen on those streets."

Starrick's hand ghosted a gentle caress on the back of her neck and she shuddered in revulsion. "I would argue that you and your fool brother have done substantially more harm to London than I have in your pointless crusade against me."

Evie opened her mouth to retort but cursing herself, noted she agreed with him on that point. Jacob's cavalier bloodbath through the Templar ranks would have brought London to its knees had she not intervened. She was too tired to be angry with him, though, and she couldn't let Starrick know they were a divided front. "I don't know about that," Evie found herself saying, trying to cover the frustration in her voice, "I think there's been a lot of good. Killing Pearl Attaway for example."

She regretted striking the nerve as soon as the words left her lips. From behind her once again came the same sound and when Starrick rounded to her front again she saw what had made the noise and her stomach twisted. He held an iron poker, the end glowing softly with a light that, while dim, radiated a malevolent warning.

"I'm afraid I must recant, Miss Frye," Starrick said slowly, like he was tasting the words in his mouth, "This does bring me some measure of satisfaction."

Fresh pain exploded through her body as he brought the poker down across her stomach, the heat burning a hole through her shirt and searing against her skin. She struggled against the ropes around her wrists as she tried in vain to push herself away and tears streamed down her face as a sickening, charred scent filled the air around her. Starrick watched her calmly, the fire reflecting in his eyes like he was something from the Inferno.

After what felt like years he pulled the poker back and the air against the angry, blistering mark on her abdomen sent a spiral of agony through her so intense Evie felt for the first time that she might black out. 

Then, Starrick pressed the burning metal against her stomach again, more firmly than before and it was only seconds before Evie cried out "Please, please stop!" He gave her a triumphant smile and her head slumped forward against her chest. 

The world was tilting on its axis and she could barely hear Starrick as he said in a low voice, "Tell me where the vault is." Evie shook her head weakly, not even able to speak. 

He lifted her chin to look up at him and her eyes went wide as she saw in his other hand, not the fire poker, but a glowing brand bearing the Templar cross. He brought it down at the top of her sternum and she screamed once again, squeezing her eyes shut as her muscles spasmed, her body convulsing beneath the brand until she could no longer breathe. She could hear Starrick moving behind her once again but she no longer cared. Everything blurred together into pain and disgust. She reached for something to blame and came to Jacob and then to Henry. Between the two of them, they may as well have set fire to London themselves. 

At least Starrick was competent. Jacob was foolhardy and destructive and Henry, no Mr. Green, put on a strong front for Evie but there was little past the facade. But at least he was kind, at least he tried to understand. Jacob wouldn't listen to a word she said because he never saw her as his sister, only as a parrot of their father. He had said as much himself. 

When she came to, her breathing haggard, she saw Starrick still standing across from her, although he wasn't facing her. He was looking out the window, the gas lights on the street below only a blur in her vision. Faintly she could hear the strains of Big Ben chiming out. Three o' clock in the morning. Did Jacob even know she was gone?

She looked down to her chest, making out the shape of the brand amidst the angry, blistered skin. Evie gagged and she was unable to stop the tears welling in her eyes. Starrick knew exactly what he was doing, burning the Templar's symbol onto her the same way cattle were marked. It spoke to some kind of ownership and that thought made her sick.

"It is ironic," Starrick said softly, "That the very thing you are suffering to keep me from would end that suffering."

It took her a moment to understand what he was saying. The Shroud, the piece of Eden that could supposedly heal all wounds inflicted. Lucy Thorne had even implied that it could bring people back from the dead, but in all of her research, Evie had never found reference to that particular ability actually existing.

"You know as well as I that I would die before I let you get your hands on the Shroud," Evie murmured.

Starrick turned and from his hand held the key to the vault he had taken from her. "And yet all it took was a vague threat against your brother's life to have you begging me to take the key to it." She flinched and he laughed softly before continuing, "I didn't even write that letter. My instructions to Mr. Collicott were simply to get you here. He's well exceeded expectations, don't you think?"

Idiot. The accusation to herself rang in her mind like a gunshot. Stupid, senseless idiot, you are, Evie Frye. She had put off berating herself when Starrick's first man came to interrogate her, but in the silence between Starrick's taunts, her anger returned. 

"Why?" She asked, surprising herself with how strong her voice was, "You own practically all of London, why would you need the Piece of Eden? Why would you need any of them?"

"London is thriving," Starrick replied, a smile appearing on his face, "Who else could be entrusted with the city's safety?"

"I don't know," Evie snapped, "We've had a queen for a while and a king before that. Not to mention the House of Commons."

Starrick scoffed. "Those blathering idiots who spend their meetings crowing and preening their own feathers like so many peacocks? Please don't insult me, Miss Frye."

"What makes you think you're better suited than any of them?" It was probably wiser to stay silent but for now she needed anywhere else to turn her anger but on herself. 

Starrick gestured to the window. "Haven't I done well thus far?"

"Exploitation is not economic success," Evie said, her heart starting to beat faster once again. "Have you ever been inside one of your factories? You enslave children and reduce men and women to shells of themselves.”

"My dear," Starrick said, crossing the room to her slowly and letting the perverse endearment hang in the air, "That is precisely the point."

She didn't reply, looking up at him with what she hoped was fury but given her state likely came off as pathetic. He ran a hand down the side of her face and she jerked away as he continued, "They may go on strike every now and again and console themselves with feeling like they're accomplishing much, but what you call exploitation I call keeping the working class in line."

Evie refused to look at him, knowing his eyes were on her and she pushed past the nauseated feeling in her stomach. "The world is changing Starrick. We have no more need for people like you."

"People like me?" He repeated, amused, "Whatever could you mean?"

"Men who hide behind their money and their policies, who think themselves grand enough to be kings among men," Evie said, every word harsh in her throat, "But the truth is you're weak. Men like you, Crawford Starrick, are weak, and you can clutch to your power as long as you like but it is slipping through your fingers and there is nothing you can do."

His posture stiffened. She had found another chord to strike. "I assume you're talking about that imbecile Disraeli," Starrick spat, "Of all the fools in the House of Commons he is the most deluded. Votes for the working class!" He laughed, a bitter sound that scraped down Evie's neck, "And you accuse me of trying to destroy London."

"They want to be treated fairly," Evie retaliated, "They're tired of having other people rule over them, dictating their decisions. Lord knows at least the Americans got one thing right."

"America? They spent the first half of the decade blowing each other up because of their so-called Democracy. It is fallacy!" The veins in his temple bulged as he spoke. 

Evie's voice rose as high as she could before her chest started to ache in full again. "It is fallacy to assume you could do better!"

"This isn't a game!" Starrick shouted and she pulled back slightly. "If power is divided, then it is only as strong as the weakest man."

"That's why you need the Shroud, isn't it? To cover up the fact that you're hiding here behind a gang that does your dirty work, pretending that you're some Caesar!" Evie paused only to catch her breath. "You're the same as all of the Templar Grandmasters who thought themselves God, you're so blinded by your own insufferable ignorance that you refuse to see how weak you are."

Starrick’s eyes flashed with rage. “The assassins have spent years cowering in the countryside because they know they cannot stop me. They cannot stop all this, not with so many pieces in place.”

“I don’t know,” Evie said, clenching her fists tightly behind her back, “All it took to start dismantling your empire was my brother and I waltzing in and declaring the city ours. No one thus far has posed much of a threat. Not Thorne, not Attaway, and least of all you.”

He took two quick steps towards Evie and slapped her hard across the face. She yelped as her head snapped to the side but Starrick was still visibly seething, the vein under his eye standing out prominently against his flushed skin. 

“I consider myself a fairly rational man,” Starrick hissed, “And that is why I have not yet killed you. But make no mistake, Evie Frye, I do not intend to let you ruin my city.”

“We’ve come close,” Evie said, for the first time daring to meet his gaze. “Go ahead. Kill me and see how little good it will do you.”

Starrick snarled, grabbing at Evie’s hair. He pulled her forward out of the chair, eliciting a cry of pain but he gave no indication of hearing her. “You are just as much the fool as your brother if you think death is the worst possible fate for you, Miss Frye.” 

Evie stumbled as he dragged her several feet to the large desk where she had found the vault blueprints and shoved her down against it so her bound hands were pressed painfully between her back and the wood, dread and terror coursing through her chest. Evie strained against his grasp, trying to bring her leg up to kick at Starrick but the angle he held her at kept her from finding leverage and the action only sent a surge of agony through her chest. 

His hands moved to her waist, ripping her trousers down her legs in one swift motion. Evie shrieked and writhed in his grasp, but he shoved her down by her injured arm and sparks exploded in her eyes. Starrick leaned over her, one hand undoing the fastener on his own trousers, the other pressing down on her shoulder and only worsening the blinding pain that seized up her muscles and robbed her of the ability to fight against him. 

“You think I’m not capable of building or razing all of London at my slightest whim?” Starrick hissed. His breath was hot on her face as he whispered, “We will see.” With the last word, he wrenched her legs wide and surged forward, forcing himself into her.

Evie’s back arched at the sudden pressure and bit her tongue to stifle the cry of pain bubbling up in her throat, but she couldn’t stop the wild, desperate keening that tore itself from her chest as she struggled. Starrick gripped her by the shoulders and slammed her back so that her head cracked against the wood with such force that she lay stunned, the world spinning out of focus around her.

Her breath came in stuttered gasps and she once again felt tears prick at her eyes. She clenched her teeth together and squeezed her eyes shut before they could fall. What little of her still present refused to give Starrick the satisfaction.

Her head felt like a thousand-piece orchestra all screeching in horrible cacophony as she tried desperately to think of something else, anything else. That's what she did when she couldn't control a situation, like when her father died and she and Jacob were suddenly on their own. But then she was thinking about Jacob and her heart broke all over again. It had all been to protect him and he was never even here.

Starrick’s fingers dug into her hips and his movement became more frenzied and frantic as he let out a horrible, twisted laugh. The sound made her gag once, twice. Starrick stalled, looking down at her with some combination of fury, lust, and mania. Evie’s eyes went wide, her heart pounding in her chest with such ferocity that she physically ached

Then, as suddenly as he grabbed her, he pulled away, letting go of her entirely. The muscles in her legs went slack and she slid down to the ground, noiseless sobs already pulling themselves from her throat. She barely had the presence of mind to pull her trousers back up to her waist before she collapsed to her hands and knees, shuddering and dry heaving.

She looked up to Starrick with bitter loathing on her face. Starrick paced in front of her, panting hard, his eyes alight with a dark fire akin to insanity. Still, his voice was oddly calm as he said “I think I've made my point quite clearly, don't you think, Miss Frye?”

Evie didn’t respond, couldn’t respond as her throat closed up with terror. Starrick dropped to one knee and lifted her chin with his hand. She flinched and tried to pull away, but he caught her arm and pulled her closer again. “When I return, you’ll have the location of the vault, won’t you?”

All she could do was nod. He smiled and let go of her before standing up and turning to leave. Evie’s mind raced frantically as she watched him go, trying to devise some plan. She couldn't give him the Shroud. That would be giving him the power to destroy London, if not the world.

Some part of her had never been terribly frightened by Starrick. He seemed to her like the bureaucrats he surrounded himself with. The floor felt like it was dropping out from beneath her, sending a wave of vertigo through her body as she came to the realization that she had no idea what she was going up against. The name Crawford Starrick inspired fear for a reason.

She had sorely underestimated what kind of man he was. What kind of monster. For her part now, all she could do was pray that if Jacob was coming for her, he wouldn’t make the same mistake.


	3. Into The Heart of Light, The Silence

_Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not_

_Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither_

_Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,_

_Looking into the heart of light, the silence._

_Oed’ und leer das Meer._

_-_ T.S. Eliot, _The Waste Land_

* * *

Jacob detested the City of Westminster. The wide boulevards and fastidiously maintained common greens reminded him far too much of his father's estate in Crawley. Besides, the people who occupied these grand apartments tended to be stuffy and boring. He was much more at home in a pub with a fight or two brewing than here where the most action was a 'gentleman's duel'. Fuck's sake, even Evie going on about some great old Assassin hero was more entertaining than that.

Ironically enough, Evie probably felt as comfortable here as he did in Lambeth or the Devil's Acre. In fact, according to Henry, Evie was fighting in the Westminster club when she received the letter from Starrick.

Henry himself was crouched next to Jacob on one of the rooftops of Vincent Square, where they'd been watching the Templars' patrol routes around the streets for what felt like hours, but according to the Great Bell, it had been less than thirty minutes. To no surprise to Jacob, Henry had insisted on coming when they learned from his spies that Evie had gone inside in the late evening and never came back out. He'd said himself that he wasn't comfortable with being out in the field but he was here now and ready to fight. He looked terrified if Jacob was going to be honest, but Henry was still an assassin. He could hold his own.

He hoped.

Jacob nudged Henry's shoulder. "Something on your mind, Greenie?"

Henry shot Jacob an annoyed look that reminded him of his sister and turned back to face Starrick's townhouse before he muttered, "I'm worried about Evie."

"Obviously," Jacob said, "She's currently inside a Templar stronghold. I'd say worry is an appropriate, if underwhelming reaction."

"What if he's hurt her? Starrick?"

Jacob forced a smile that felt more like a grimace. "She's a big girl, Henry. She knows how to handle herself."

"No, I mean what if she's _dead?_ " Henry's voice cracked over the last word and a chill ran through Jacob's blood. 

He hadn't even considered that Evie might not be alive. For better or worse, she was a constant presence in his mind, even if just to serve as a reminder that there was someone waiting for him if he didn't come home. Jacob hated to admit it to himself, but she was the closest thing to a parent he'd ever had besides their grandmother. He gave her hell and she was still there. She had only wound up in this mess because she thought she was saving him. So no, she couldn't be dead, because then Jacob would never forgive himself for not being there the one time that it counted.

"Starrick wouldn't kill her outright," Jacob said, "Best case scenario, she's bait."

"For who?"

Jacob popped his lips. "Me." He had killed the only person Starrick reportedly loved, as horrifying as the thought was. But now that Henry had said it, his worst thoughts were spiraling off in another direction. Had Starrick killed his sister out of spite? He seemed like a calculating bastard but Jacob didn't put anyone above petty revenge. Did Roth know anything about this? He wracked his memory to see if the man had said anything before he died, but nothing of note stood out.

"Well," Jacob announced, standing and rolling his shoulders back, "I'm done waiting. Are you confident you know where the guards will be?"

"I'd feel better with a map," Henry admitted, "But I can make do."

"No time like the present."

They moved forward across the rooftops around the square, the tin-plated roofs creaking under the weight of the two men's footfalls. There were two lookouts standing watch over the house, one on the roof and the other on the second-floor balcony, ready to raise the alarm the moment someone unfamiliar appeared. Jacob slipped his hand beneath his coat, to the wide sheath on his back, and wrapped his fingers around a throwing knife, the corkscrew grip a familiar comfort. 

He motioned for Henry to stay in place, then crept a few metres closer, rolling between the chimneys that served as cover against the lookouts' watchful eyes. When he was certain the balcony was in range, he waited until the man's back was turned and threw the knife with practiced ease. The knife hit the lookout, but not in the head as Jacob had hoped, and the man cried out in pain. 

"Shit," Jacob whispered, already reaching for a second knife to finish the man off, but it was too late. His startled cry alerted the woman patrolling above him and she was starting to drop down to the balcony. The second time, the knife hit home and the man collapsed, blood spattering against the wall behind him. The second lookout must have heard the body collapse because before her feet hit the balcony she was peering out into the dark in search of Jacob.

Metal hissed past Jacob's ear and he threw himself back just as the second lookout collapsed without a sound. He looked back with annoyance to see Henry shuffling up behind him, panic etched into his expression. 

"I had it handled," Jacob hissed.

"We're working together," Henry retorted, "And if I hadn't reacted, she could have called to the other Templars and that's the last thing we want."

"The last thing _you_ want," Jacob grumbled, but begrudgingly admitted Henry was right. Things would go more smoothly if they cooperated. Even if the only reason Henry was here was because he was fucking Jacob's sister. "Come on." 

Jacob walked to the edge of the roof and raised his gauntlet, aiming for the concrete column that rose up above the townhouse from which smoke filtered lazily into the night sky. With a sharp whirring sound, he launched the harpoon dart from his gauntlet. It flew through two of the metal pikes with a shriek of metal and he gave the rope a tug to test it. Satisfied the line would hold, he stepped back and pulled the remainder of the rope through the iron grate of a window awning and secured it. He gestured across to Starrick's townhouse. "After you."

Henry gave him a suspicious look, to which Jacob rolled his eyes. "We're working together, aren't we?"

Henry lowered himself onto the line, moving hand over hand since the man insisted on not wearing gloves. It took ages for him to get across, by which time Jacob was so impatient he could have screamed. He glided across the line effortlessly and couldn't help a smug grin in Henry's direction as he leaned out and cut the rope as far out as he could reach. The remaining line fell slack against the house across from them and Jacob hoped that no one would notice what to his eyes was glaringly obvious.

He loaded the end of the rope on their side back into his gauntlet and gathered it until he reached where the harpoon had lodged. With nimble fingers, he dislodged the harpoon and pressed the trigger on his gauntlet that retracted the dart. The line snaked back into his gauntlet with a _thwip_.

"You know I still haven't figured out how that works," Henry noted, a bit of envy coming through in his voice.

"Hell if I know. Ask Aleck Bell." Jacob said. "Let's go. I don't want Evie in there any longer than she has to be." 

Henry silently fell into step behind him. As they walked, Jacob reached out with the part of him that extended beyond his own consciousness, the only useful thing Ethan Frye had ever taught him. Well, besides fighting, but the other Assassins in Crawley had done well enough that he needn't give his father the credit. He could make out the hazy outlines of the doors beneath him, felt the slight heat of the people walking on the street below and the blazing roar of the Templars that his mind interpreted into a deep red color. 

He froze, Henry almost running into him from behind. "What?"

The hair on the nape of Jacob's neck stood on end, a weight in his chest like something was crushing him. "What the hell?" He murmured.

"What is it?" 

He frowned. "I don't know." Jacob pushed past the discomfort and quickly found his answer. The blurry outline of two figures appeared in his vision and the longer he looked, the more distinct they became, the pressure in his chest growing in kind until the outlines became full silhouettes. Evie's rich white aura was familiar to him. The other seared into his vision with a dark red, that deepened and stirred nausea in his stomach. No one had ever elicited that kind of response before, but Jacob knew exactly who the silhouette belonged to.

"Evie's here," Jacob said quietly, "With Starrick."

"She's alive?" Henry asked, his voice a little too loud. 

"Yes!" Jacob muttered, shushing Henry. Evie must have told him about their 'sense' during some romantic tryst or other. He dropped down over the edge of the roof to the balcony facade below and Henry followed suit, landing on the facade next to him. The curtains were drawn in every window but one had a narrow gap between the drapes through which light streamed out into the street. Jacob pointed and the two moved silently across the balconies until they were on either side of the window looking in. 

Jacob wasn't sure what to expect. He had sort of conjured up an image akin to the Tower of London, all stark stone and menacing bars, but the room beyond the window looked like the office of any well-to-do businessman or politician. Then, Henry inhaled suddenly and Jacob stiffened. Sat in front of a fireplace in a low armchair was Evie. Her head was down, her dark hair, usually pulled back, now hanging free, hiding her face. Her right arm was in a sling, her clothes were torn and bloody, and even from outside Jacob saw the slight jerk in her movement as she inhaled. 

Worse than Evie's appearance was the figure behind her. Crawford Starrick stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders and his mouth pressed against her ear. Jacob's eyes went wide, fury rising in his tensed muscles. Starrick lifted Evie's chin revealing the blood that trailed down from her mouth and the horrible expression on her face. It wasn't just terror, it was the look an animal gave a hunter as it lay bleeding to death, the fear mingling with confusion and pain. 

Henry covered his mouth as Starrick pulled her head to the side sharply and said something with a small laugh. Jacob's stomach turned and he finally tore his gaze away, not realizing how fast his breathing was. Whatever Starrick said must have been beyond horrible, because Evie began _crying_.

Jacob reached into the pouch at his side and slipped on his brass knuckles, moving to break the window, but a hair's breadth from the glass, Henry's arm shot out and caught hold of his wrist. 

"I don't care what you think, I am going in there," Jacob said, the warning ringing in his voice.

"So you can watch as Starrick murders her in front of you? I didn't take you for that much of a _chutia_." Henry snapped.

"I'll pretend that means someone who cares enough to save my bloody sister!"

"I want to help her as much as you do," Henry said, "But please, let's not ruin our only opportunity."

Jacob took a deep breath, silently cursing Henry to three different forms of Hell, before snatching his hand back. "What do you suggest, Mr. Green?" He asked, his voice acidic.

"I'll cause a disturbance around the front of the house. Wait until Starrick leaves, then break in."

"How do you know Starrick will leave?"

Henry smiled and withdrew a metal ball the size of his fist. "A good friend in Istanbul called this 'the modern Greek fire'. I've found she was not wrong."

Jacob rolled his eyes. "No wonder Evie is in love with you. She probably understands what that means."

Henry gave him an odd look but only said, "I'll try to meet up with you on the train. And Jacob--" Henry met his gaze and held it for a few seconds like he was trying to decide what to say. Finally, he murmured, "Thank you for coming."

"Why wouldn't I?"

Henry looked away. "You two have had quite the falling out. What with your Rooks and constantly harassing her for searching for the Shroud of Eden, Evie confided in me that she wasn't sure how much longer you two would work together."

Jacob's voice caught in his throat and he swallowed hard before saying, "Evie is the most important thing in the world to me." He surprised himself a little by how much he meant it.

"Should you both come out of this alive, you ought to tell her. I don't think she knows." Henry gave him a sad smile, then pulled himself up over the edge of the rooftop.

The silence left Jacob reeling. Did Evie really think he didn't care whether she lived or died? And still, she was willing to sacrifice herself for his sake. He hadn't been harassing her, had he? She was always on about him not caring about upholding the ideals of the brotherhood or what have you, but from Jacob's perspective it seemed like all Evie wanted to do was chase stories. There were problems right in front of them that she seemed to deliberately ignore in favor of magic that might not exist anyways. He couldn't recall anything he'd said to her but they'd never ended a discussion on a good note. Truthfully, he had considered working on his own a few times. The thought now just made him feel guilty.

Guilt was a distraction. He could apologize to Evie later. Right now, he had to make sure she lived long enough for him to be able to do so.

Henry seemed to be taking an unusually long time, and Jacob squinted at Big Ben in the distance as though he'd be able to read it. When had he left?

An explosion like Jacob hadn't heard since Evie blew up Brewster's laboratory cut through the still night air, the window panes rattling to his side and stray dogs taking up a chorus. Even from the other of the townhouse, Jacob could see flames flickering above the treetops, then a second boom shook the house once again, followed by several pistols discharging. 

"Henry, you glorious bastard," he whispered and tensed, ready to break into Starrick's study the moment the man was gone. 

_Hold on, Evie_ , Jacob thought. _We're not letting you go that easy._

-

When the door to Starrick's study first opened only a few minutes after he'd left her, Evie jerked back from the window she'd been about to attempt to smash, the paperweight she'd lifted from Starrick's desk held awkwardly in one hand behind her. It was a vain hope considering she couldn't even stand to provide the strength needed, but she had to try. At least until she heard the footsteps beyond the threshold. The weight dropped to the ground with a muffled thud and she drew back against the wall as the lock rattled and the door swung open, but it wasn't Starrick who entered. A Templar in a black leather coat and white armband entered, holding open the door for a middle-aged man and the crosses on his bag and embroidered into his waistcoat proclaimed he was a Templar as well. However, upon closer inspection, she realized that the cross on the bag wasn't the Templar cross at all, but the symbol of a doctor.

Still, that wasn't enough to ease her mind. Starrick had already employed a number of corrupt doctors and God knew what the man approaching her wanted.

The doctor moved towards her and she flinched away from him. "I'd stop there," Evie warned, but the threat in her tone was hollow. Honestly, what would she do? Just the small movement away from him caused enough pain that she became dizzy.

"Mr. Starrick sent me," he said slowly, as though that was meant to comfort her.

"Why?" None of the reasons she could come up with were cheery.

The doctor sighed through his nose. "To do what doctors generally do, which is fix people up."

"Funny, Templar doctors tend to do quite the opposite." She had intended the statement to be scathing but she was already out of breath by the time she reached the end of the sentence.

He sighed again and reached for her good arm, pulling her up with a surprising amount of strength for the man's slight build. Her legs were weak as she stood, but she managed to reach the armchair in front of the fireplace and sat down heavily. Her vision came and went, the room spinning around her like a demented carousel. The doctor withdrew a pocket knife from within his pocket and Evie winced as he reached around her back. Then, the ropes around her wrists fell away, and she inhaled quickly through her teeth as the coarse fibers slid across raw skin. 

The doctor pulled her good arm in front of her and she gasped as the muscles in her shoulder strained against the movement. He didn't seem to notice or care, rummaging in his bag and retrieving a clear bottle of liquor and a roll of bandage linens, then mechanically cleaning the wounds on her wrist. When she hissed in pain and instinctively pulled away, he gripped her arm hard enough to bruise and continued his work. For whatever reason he was here, it wasn't because he felt any sort of benevolence towards her.

When he finished, he stood and pulled on her right arm. Evie made a strangled, throaty noise as burning pain shot through her arm and shoulder blades. She clenched her jaw and forced herself to breathe slowly but as the doctor moved her arm up, bending the elbow, she couldn't stop a high, breathy cry from escaping as the muscles in her arm seized. 

H"God, fucking...you have to relax," the doctor snapped, pulling on her arm a little harder. After another few seconds, the doctor let out an irate growl and stooped to his bag, unstopping a vial and dabbing the contents onto a handkerchief. He pressed the cloth to her mouth and nose and Evie gave a muffled sound of protest as she recognized the sickly-sweet scent of chloroform. She grabbed at his arm with her good hand but he held the fabric firmly, his other hand holding her back against the chair so she couldn't move. Her throat and lungs began to burn and after a long moment her hand fell weakly to her side as she slumped back. The doctor pressed a little harder, shaking her head a little like he was scolding her before finally pulling the handkerchief away.

The sensation in her body dulled and the world blurred around her. But while the anesthetic brought some slight relief to her body, it only served to increase her panic when she tried to move and found she couldn't without feeling like she was slogging through mud. Even forming a coherent thought took vastly more effort than it should have. What if Starrick came back before the effect wore off? At least before she'd been able to resist. The thought of him being able to do whatever he liked without her being able to fight back was so horrible she gagged slightly.

The Templar doctor moved her arm over her head like she was a cloth doll and she felt the pop of her shoulder moving back into place throughout her whole body. He continued working without speaking to her, setting her arm in a sling, cleaning the chafing on her wrists before turning his attention to the burns on her chest and abdomen. He frowned as he tugged at the holes burned into her shirt and corset beneath, then reached again for his pocket knife and began to cut the ties of her corset at her shoulders.

Evie shook her head with as much force as she was able, which wasn't much. "No..." she managed to say, her tongue feeling like lead in her mouth. The doctor did give pause, looking her up and down, though she couldn't begin to fathom what he was looking for. Then, in what could have been considered a gentle voice, he said, "I need to take off the corset. I'll leave your shirt."

She didn't want him taking off anything for any reason, but she didn't have much of say. As murky as her thoughts were, she tried to keep from thinking about Starrick as he cut through the ties of her corset at the back and slid the garment off from under her shirt. He widened the holes in her shirt around the burns and Evie closed her eyes, letting her head fall back and allowing herself to slip away into a haze of delirium. It was easier than dealing with the present. Still, as much as she wanted to, she couldn't let herself fall asleep, not right now. It was too dangerous.

Evie came to when she heard Starrick's voice. She opened her eyes to find him speaking with the doctor, although it took a moment for the words to become clear. 

"....worsens, then send for me," the doctor said, hefting his bag. "I don't see why you're keeping an Assassin alive, especially one of the damned Frye twins."

"I hold in reserve the ability to change my mind from time to time," Starrick said, his quiet voice rasping down her spine. 

The doctor tipped his bowler hat to Starrick and Evie almost called out for him to stay even though he wasn't exactly kind, because the alternative of being alone with Crawford Starrick once again was so much worse. 

"How do you feel, Miss Frye?" Starrick stopped in front of her, his hands held behind his back.

 _Like crawling out of my skin._ Evie rolled her head to the side to look up at him as she said slowly, "Like ripping out your throat." The fog in her head had cleared somewhat, but it still took an enormous amount of effort to speak.

Starrick laughed. "I'll take that to mean Dr. Korman has done good work, as usual."

Here was his gentleman's act once more. God, she'd so severely underestimated him. Evie's stomach roiled with sudden nausea and she jerked forward as she gagged. Her hair fell down around her and she tried to remember if the doctor, Korman, had undone her hair from its chignon. It didn't matter, as she was more focused on not vomiting all over herself, an endeavor she was sure she was going to fail when a large bucket of ice was placed on her lap. 

Evie was horribly aware of Starrick's hands combing through her hair and pulling it back but there was nothing she could do as she heaved up bile and the few contents of her stomach. She coughed, groaning as her body convulsed until she was sweating from exhaustion. Shaking, Evie watched Starrick with a mixture of horror and confusion as he set the pail aside and poured a glass of water from a pitcher on the sidebar. He held the glass to her lips and she pulled away, but he continued more insistently until she drank. The water did soothe the burning in her throat, even if only for a moment.

"Dr. Korman warned me that would happen," Starrick said as he set the now empty glass on a side table. "A side effect of the anesthetic, unfortunately."

"Why are you doing this?" Evie asked as loud as she could, but the question still came out as a murmur.

"Am I not allowed to show some kindness?" He asked. Something changed about Starrick's posture that she couldn't quite identify, but it set alarm bells ringing inside Evie's head. A sharp pain swelled behind her eyes like a wedge had been driven through her skull and she closed her eyes against the light in the room that now seemed blinding.

"Are you familiar with the Maharajah who resides in London?" Starrick continued.

Evie wasn't sure how to respond. Did he know that Mr. Singh knew where to find copies of the blueprints of Buckingham palace? She couldn't risk putting his life in danger. "Not really." She could hardly hear him over the ringing in her ears.

"An idealist, like yourself," Starrick said, "He is quite infamous among London's elite for owning tigers which he allows to roam his property." As he spoke, he moved slowly behind Evie once again. She could feel his presence even once he moved past where she could see him and started when she felt the weight of his hands on her shoulders. "I was rather fascinated with tigers as a child, as I suppose most British children are when they first learn of the wonders of the east. They are magnificent creatures, deadly, yes," He leaned down to murmur against her ear and she flinched. "But also that much more beautiful for it."

Evie began to feel sick again but this time it was accompanied by her heart beating faster, trying to push through the haze her mind was in. She had to run, she had to leave, _now_ , or at least find some way to get away from Starrick, but she could still barely move. 

He put a hand beneath her chin and lifted her head viciously. Starrick's voice was almost a whisper as he spoke. "Such a creature would make a charming pet, don't you think, Miss Frye?" Evie's eyes went wide as she fully grasped his meaning. The part of her fighting for consciousness screamed at her and she pulled against his grasp, but he only tightened his fingers around her jaw and forced her head to the side. "Why would I break something I intend to keep?" He laugh as he let go of her shoulders and she trembled between silent sobs, the tears she could no longer stop trailing down her cheeks.

"Of course, I do need something from you first." Starrick's tone changed, becoming more serious now and came back around to face her.

Evie laid her head against the back of the chair. "Go to hell," she mumbled.

"What was that?"

With all the strength she could muster she spat out, panting between each word. "I said, Crawford Starrick: _Go. To. Hell."_

Starrick raised an eyebrow. "Need I remind you that you don't really have a choice?"

She didn't have a choice. She couldn't stop him from hurting her but she could stop him from destroying the known world. The pounding in her skull grew worse by the second and she couldn't see straight on without the world splitting into so many fractals, but she could see enough as Starrick's gaze darkened when she didn't respond. "So be it."

He closed the distance between them and wrenched her forward, kicking the chair out from under her and throwing her to the ground. She landed hard on her right arm, her already injured shoulder screaming in protest as she rolled over onto her back. She weakly pushed herself back, her fingers slipping against the floor as she looked up in horror as Starrick moved to stand over her. 

An earth-shattering _boom_ ripped through the room, the sound loud enough that she felt it in her chest. She and Starrick both looked to the direction the sound had come from, but there was no evidence of an explosion. Then another echoed through the room, just as loud as the first. Shouts rang out from below them accompanied by gunfire and a few seconds later, the door to Starrick's study slammed open to reveal the man who had let Korman in. He looked between Starrick and Evie, his eyes wide, before stammering out, "We-we're under attack, sir."

"Obviously," Starrick growled, stepping over Evie to the sideboard and opening a drawer to retrieve a set of pistols and a gleaming knife. He pointed at Evie, whose heart was hammering against her ribs fast enough that she felt faint again. "Stay here, watch her," Starrick ordered.

He spun the chamber of one of the revolvers, then slammed the door behind him as he left, and Evie's head fell back against the ground, tears falling once more.

-

Jacob rammed his fist into the window and covered his face as he launched himself through it, shards of glass raining around him as he tumbled into the room with a roll. He drew his gun, cocked the hammer, aimed, and fired as he moved, hitting the Templar guard square in the chest. The man dropped as Jacob got to his feet and he fired again into the man's head for good measure.

"Jacob?" 

He turned at Evie's voice, so soft he'd barely heard her. She was sprawled out on the ground, her chest rising and falling weakly. For a moment, he was frozen in place as he took in his sister's appearance from up close. It wasn't just the bruises and burns that struck him like a knife to the heart. The streaks of blood on her face stood out harshly against her pale skin, her blue eyes distant as her gaze fixed on him. They had been through some nasty scrapes together, but Jacob had never seen her look so...small.

He shook his head sharply and dropped to his knees next to her. "Evie," he mumbled, pushing a stray lock of hair from her face, "It's all right, we're here now."

She exhaled with a slight jolt and closed her eyes. "You're...a little...late."

"Sorry about that," he replied, but he wasn't looking at her face. What was wrong with her? She was beat to all shit but he couldn't see any wounds deep enough to warrant this. As he looked her over again, his eyes passed the edge of a burn mark peeking over the top of Evie's shirt and he hooked a finger over the fabric, pulling it down just far enough to expose the cross seared into her skin. He clenched his fist, rage thundering through his veins. "I'm going to rip that bastard limb from limb," he whispered.

"I'm fine," Evie said quietly, "Let's go."

"Obviously not," Jacob said, gritting his teeth, "What the fuck did he do?"

She gave him a pleading, desperate look, and something twisted in his chest as he realized that something was very, deeply wrong. "Please, Jacob, let's just go," she begged, her voice rasping.

"All right." He nodded, a little dazed, and slipped her arm around his neck before hauling her up in his arms. 

She let out a low groan as he moved her, but she pressed her lips together tightly before gasping out, "I'm all right. Go."

Jacob maneuvered open the door, and the muffled sounds of fighting below became louder as he took Evie out onto the landing. He crouched, looking around the banister for any sign of Starrick or the other Templars, but the floor below was empty. Henry must have drawn the fighting out into the street. He hefted her up once again and this time the sound she made was a little louder as he stood. Jacob winced. "Sorry."

"Fractured rib...most likely." Evie hissed in pain on every step and each noise bore into his heart with more guilt. For the moment, though, he had to focus on getting out of the house. He pushed aside the thoughts spinning in the back of his head through the worst part of his imagination at what Evie had been through, and ducked into a side hallway he figured would connect to the back. There. At the end of the hall, a wide window led out into the dark street behind the townhouse.

"Almost there," Jacob promised, adjusting his arm beneath her legs and picking up his pace as he made his way down the hall. "Henry did a good job of clearing them out, didn't he?"

She blinked a few times. "Henry's here?" She slurred.

"Didn't you hear the explosions?" Jacob said, trying his best to keep his voice light for Evie's sake, "He told me he had some 'Roman fire' or whatever."

"Greek," Evie said miserably and Jacob forced a laugh.

"See, I told him you would know what that meant." He reached the back window and looked down at Evie. "You've got to stand for a moment, just hold on to me.

She nodded slowly and Jacob let her legs down, waiting until she was leaning solidly against him before turning to the window. He pulled up on the window and his fingers slid off the edge. Damn it. Of course. "Hold on, it's jammed."

He strained against the sash, feeling it budge slightly but not enough. Next to him, Evie tensed. "Jacob," she said, her voice rising in warning. 

He turned, the arm not around Evie's waist going to his revolver as he moved. In the darkness at the other end of the hallway stood a disheveled figure, gun outstretched in their direction, and through the shadows Jacob could faintly make out the details of the person's face--it was Starrick.

Jacob stepped between the Templar Grandmaster and Evie, aiming his pistol down the hall. "It's a shame I have to be off, Starrick!" He called, his voice echoing off the walls, "Otherwise I'd stay and beat the living shit out of you!"

Evie pulled at his arm. "Jacob, please," she said, her panic only serving to increase his fury.

"No, it's all right, Evie," Jacob said, his anger bubbling up into his voice, "Stand down or die, Starrick. It's about time someone forced you to make that decision."

Starrick laughed, the sound dark and malevolent. "Perhaps I should consult your sister then, Mr. Frye. She's been forced to do a lot of things tonight."

Jacob's eyes widened when Starrick's meaning registered and he looked back at Evie, hoping to God he had imagined it. She refused to meet his eyes. 

"You son of a bitch," Jacob snarled. The dam he had shored up against all of the rage and grief burst and he fired on Starrick. The sound of the gunshot echoed, amplified by the narrow hallway, which set his ears ringing, but Starrick jerked out of the way and the sound of shattering glass from the end of the hallway indicated the bullet's trajectory. 

Evie's arm slid down his shoulders and Jacob struggled to keep hold of her as she collapsed to the floor. He turned back to her and his breath caught at the stain spreading across the white of Evie's shirt, black in the pale moonlight. It hadn't been an echo of his own gunshot he'd heard. _Starrick had been aiming at Evie._

He looked between Evie and Starrick, who was rapidly approaching, then fired his gun again--this time, at the window. Jacob pulled Evie into his arms once again, took a few steps back, and then hurled himself through the window. He kept his arms tight around Evie as they rolled, blood already streaming down his face from the broken glass. He caught his breath once they stopped, then put his thumb and forefinger between his lips and let out a piercing whistle.

A landau carriage screeched around the corner, two Rooks on the driver's platform who had been patrolling the streets just beyond the townhouse and waiting for Jacob's signal. The two green-jacketed figures leaped out of the carriage as it ground to a halt on the cobblestone road. "Evening, Jacob!" The larger man said, already pulling out a knife.

A series of shouts came from around the side of the house and Jacob looked up to see a half-dozen Templars sprinting towards them. He swore and looked down at Evie, then swore again. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was shallow and rapid. Perhaps blunt force trauma after a gunshot hadn't been the best of ideas, but he'd been out of options.

"Join the fight," Jacob said to the Rooks, "Keep the Templars at bay while we get out."

"Right you are, sir!"

He struggled to his feet and was about to lift Evie in his arms when a bullet shrieked over his head, burying itself into the side of the carriage. The horses shuffled uneasily, and Jacob turned to see Starrick, who had stepped out of the broken window, pistol in hand. 

Then, another person appeared next to him, reaching down for Evie as well. Jacob braced himself for a fight, but realized with a start that it was Henry. Jacob let out a quick sigh of relief as Henry smiled, and together, the hoisted Evie up. Henry opened the door to the carriage for him and Jacob stepped up on the mounting block. He set Evie down, propping her legs up on the seat, then hopped up onto the driver's platform as Henry jumped up beside him. 

"Fine night for a drive," Jacob said, and Henry laughed as Jacob snapped the reins, urging the horses into motion with a shout.

Another gunshot tore through the air and Jacob looked back to Starrick, whose face was contorted with rage, almost demonic in the dim light of the street lamps. Jacob grimaced and looked back to the road ahead, gauging the fastest way to the train. 

Henry made an odd sound next to him, and Jacob glanced over just in time to see Henry slump over, blood pooling around a wound between his shoulder blades. Jacob yelled and reached for him, but Henry's robes slipped through his fingers as the man toppled from the carriage. He pulled back on the reins to slow the horses, trying to see where Henry had fallen, but instead saw Starrick, flanked by three others, running towards them and closing quickly. He yelled again, this time in rage at what he had to do, and cracked the reigns once more.

"Henry!" Evie screamed from behind him, although the sound was closer to a whimper. "Jacob, you have to..." Her voice devolved into wet coughs, and he couldn't risk looking back at her, but he knew she was on the verge of blacking out. "Go back..." she gasped out.

"I can't!" Jacob said, unable to quell the panic in his own voice, "I can't, Evie, Starrick will kill you!"

She didn't respond, but the sounds of her labored breathing and hacking sobs were loud enough that it could be heard over the clattering of the wheels against the road. The night was surprisingly still once they gained some distance from Vincent Square, which felt wrong. The world should have been fucking ending. Jacob wasn't even sure what he felt anymore--his fury collided with the bitter knife of sorrow in his chest until he couldn't even tell the difference in his mind between the two. 

All he knew for sure was the single determination he made as he picked up speed through the streets of Westminster. He was going to kill Crawford Starrick. No matter how dangerous he was, no matter how much Evie protested. No matter the cost to himself.

He would see the man bleed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up being a lot longer than I initially planned, but it's done! If you're reading this, thank you for getting this far! Hopefully, you're enjoying the pretentious Eliot references and gratuitous whump. I'd love to know your thoughts if you have something to say, since this has been somewhat difficult to post. But! I'm committed to finishing. So hopefully, you'll stick with me <3


	4. Sweet Thames, Run Softly Till I End My Song

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience with this chapter. It ended being not only much longer than I anticipated, but also more heavily emotional than I was ready to write. I really appreciate all the enthusiasm this fic has garnered, it helped over this last week as I realized I needed to re-outline the end of this fic, since my goals in writing it have changed. I also needed a quick break from it, although in that time I was working on another AC: Syndicate story that I'll hopefully be posting the first few chapters of once this story is completed. So again, thank you and enjoy this next chapter!

_...The nymphs are departed._

_And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors;_

_Departed, have left no addresses._

_By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . ._

_Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,_

_Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long._

_-_ T.S. Eliot, _The Waste Land_

* * *

The early morning streets of Westminster were quiet, the slight fog rolling over the cobblestones and the sun below the horizon casting a gray light in the sky. Quiet, save for the clattering of carriage wheels as Jacob drove the horses on with a frightening speed under the slowly brightening sky. Evie hadn't said a word to him on the way to Victoria station where he had agreed to meet Agnes, and he kept glancing back at her to make sure that she was still breathing. He wanted to do more for her, but he'd stopped at a street corner to check on her and had been greeted by several Blighters looking for a fight, forcing them to keep moving. It wasn't safe for Evie to keep going, but it was worse to stop. For all he knew, Starrick had sent out a regiment of men after them, just waiting to catch up. 

As they approached the station, he turned the carriage sharply to a halt, the horses nickering in protest, and jumped back next to Evie. She was pale, shivering in the slight rain that had opened up above them. Jacob pulled off his coat and sat her up to wrap it around her, and she hummed something he couldn't quite understand. He lifted the hem of her shirt to see if he could find where Starrick's bullet had hit her, and to his relief, he saw the bullet hadn't entered her body at all. It was nasty—the bullet had grazed her side and torn away the tissue above her hip bone—but although it was a bloody affair, the wound wasn't a lethal one.

He kicked open the carriage door and tucked his arms beneath her knees and back. "Come on up, old girl," he whispered, and she put her arm around his neck as he lifted her up, then jumped down out of the carriage. She groaned when his feet hit the ground, pressing her head into his chest as he began walking up the steps onto the platform. The few others heading in and out of the station only spared a passing glance of confusion or worry as he made his way up into the station proper. On the far side of the platform sat the train hideout, the locomotive gleaming in the soft light. 

Evie stirred in his arms and he held her tight against him. "It's going to be all right, Evie."

She said something that sounded like 'Henry', but he ignored her, picking up his pace as he made his way around the edge of the tracks. As he approached, he yelled out "Oi! I need help!"

A few cars down, a young, blonde woman peeked out from the third car. He recognized her as Lola Fergus, one of the Rooks who had joined on as a bookkeeper as he and Evie had expanded their operation into investments, something far over his head. Still, she could hold her own in a fight and frequented the train with one of the other ladies on her arm. "Jacob?" She called. "Is that you?" 

"Lola! Meet me in the first car! I need water, whiskey, and bandages. And whatever else you can find!" 

She saluted and ducked back into the car as Jacob stepped up onto the coupler platform. He maneuvered his way past the books and papers scattered across the floor and lay Evie down on the bed. She inhaled slowly and let out the breath with a low, staggering moan. Jacob sat down on the bed next to her and tugged his jacket out from beneath her. "We're home. You're safe now."

"What happened?" Jacob looked up to see Lola hopping over into the car, bottles in one hand, and a wooden box in the other. These, she handed to Jacob, then crossed her arms over her chest as she regarded Evie. 

"Starrick," Jacob replied coldly. He yanked the cork out of the whiskey bottle with his teeth and spat the stopper to the side, then poured a generous amount over the gouge in Evie's side. She gasped and jerked upright, then let out another agonized sound through gritted teeth as he stopped the bottle once more and picked up a length of gauze.

"Fuck," she slurred, the first coherent word since her outcry when Henry fell from the carriage.

"You're all right," Jacob said, pushing her back down onto the pillows, "Don't move too much."

"I'm going to be sick," Evie mumbled.

"I'm sure it's not that bad," Jacob said, leaning down to pick up the canteen of water. 

"No," she said with a hacking cough, "Really." She swatted aside Jacob's hand and rolled over, swinging her feet onto the ground.

"Stop it, you'll hurt yourself." Jacob tried to push her back down, but she kept moving. He sighed and pulled her good arm around his shoulders, helping her stumble to the door of the car. She slid down onto her hands and knees, heaving over the side of the coupler between the car and the locomotive. She shook her head when he dropped down next to her, but he ignored her until he tried to pull her hair back and she jolted back, shaking her head even harder.

"I'm fine," she snarled, "One...one of Starrick's men drugged me, but..." She was cut off by another round of dry heaving.

"Will you let me help?" Jacob snapped back, "God, you should look at yourself!"

She looked over to him, breathing heavily. Anger drew sharp creases on her face, but as Jacob watched, her expression flickered back and forth between not just frustration, but fear. What had happened that she didn't trust him? He supplied several answers to his own question, but brushed off the encroaching guilt, and leaned forward until his nose almost bumped hers. "You know I'm not going to hurt you, right?" He asked slowly.

"What a stupid question," she said on her next out-breath, the words coming out in a breathy sigh, but she didn't flinch when he reached for her the second time, and Jacob slowly guided her back onto the bed, where Lola had pulled back the heavy quilt. 

He nodded to Lola. "Thanks. Tell Agnes to start moving. I'll call for you if I need anything."

Lola nodded. "I'm here if you need me," she said lightly, but as she was leaving the car, she turned and gave Jacob a look of intense worry. He waved her off, but it only served to deepen his own panic. Physically, Evie had had much worse. She'd come home from one of her first solo missions with two bullets lodged in her leg and one in her shoulder and knife wounds strafing across her back. She'd lost so much blood she could barely stand and had stayed in bed sick with pneumonia for weeks. But even then she'd been bantering with George constantly and petulantly insisting her father resign from his duties to read to her.

Whatever Starrick had her dosed with seemed to be wearing off as her movements became less sluggish, but she didn't say anything else to him as he washed away the dirt and blood from her side. He tried to think of something to say to her as he continued packing and bandaging the avulsion, though as he sat Evie up in his arms to wrap the bandages around her waist, he kept glancing at the brand beneath her collarbone. His diverted attention didn't escape her notice; she balled her hand around the fabric of her shirt, pulling it up over the brand and tucking her chin over her closed fist.

"Stop," he said, pushing her hand aside to examine the mark.

"Why does it matter?" She protested.

"Because it's clean," Jacob muttered, "So are the others, and your arm was already set when we got there. Why would Starrick...?"

"I don't know," Evie mumbled, but there was a slight hesitation before she spoke, which tipped him off.

"You were never very good at lying," Jacob said.

"And you were never good at realizing when someone is deliberately obfuscating," she snapped.

He held his hands up in defeat. "Fine." He rolled up what remained of the bandages and tossed them onto the small side table. "I'll let you alone. Just answer me truthfully, please. Are you all right?"

There was a long pause in which Evie stared into the space in front of her, only swaying gently with the train’s movement. "I've survived worse."

Had she? Jacob tried to recall a time when Evie had reacted with anywhere near this severity, but couldn't think of anything. She still was hiding something from him, but knowing his sister, she would pass it off with a scornful remark or some pressing diversion should he ever ask. 

"You know, you don't always have to put on a front," Jacob said at last.

"I'm tired Jacob," she replied. Both her voice and her posture conveyed how thoroughly exhausted she was, though she continued with her usual, biting sardonicism. "And starving, I haven't eaten since yesterday afternoon." 

Even though she had done the very thing he'd said, Jacob took the hint and stood up. He wasn't that thick. If Evie needed time he could give her that, agonizing as it was to watch her try and solve all the world's problems by herself. At the very least, she wasn't telling him to fuck off entirely. He could pretend to himself that he was being useful.

The dining car was empty save for a Rook sleeping in one corner, hat pulled low over his face, and Lola, who was going over an account book at the booth. When Jacob entered, she jumped to her feet, not needing to speak aloud the question on her lips. He raised a hand. "She's fine."

Lola nodded, though the worried expression didn't entirely disappear from her face. "And Mr. Green?" He sighed heavily and she shook her head. "Sorry, I didn't mean—"

"I think he's dead." Jacob winced at how callous the words sounded. He'd been able to compartmentalize, to focus on making sure Evie survived, but now that the immediate danger had passed, the guilt he had shunted to the side came rushing back to greet him.

She took a step back. "What do you mean, dead?"

"He was shot by Starrick's men. He...he fell off the carriage as we were leaving, but Evie was already so weak and there were so many people after us, it wasn't safe to go back."

"You don't have to justify anything to me, Jacob," she said, putting a hand on his arm. "We're almost to Waterloo station. I'll send a telegram to the boys at Blue Anchor Alley to comb the streets, see if they can find him. If you want," she added hastily.

Jacob nodded, but his attention was far distant. He had watched Henry fall, had seen where the bullet had gone through his chest. If he wasn't dead already, he didn't have much longer to live. He wasn't someone who shouldered many regrets, but there was a part of him that wondered if maybe he'd have tried harder to save Henry if Jacob hadn't been so...well, jealous. Jacob was used to men fawning over Evie—as gross as he claimed it to be, she was attractive for a woman of their age—but with Henry there seemed to be something more. He had become Evie's confidante in Jacob's absence.

That absence being the last thing Henry had said to him before they'd split up. The reason Evie had gone to Starrick in the first place because he hadn't bothered to let her know about Roth and the show at the Alhambra. God, that felt like an eternity ago, but it had been only hours. 

The train slowed beneath them and his realization combined with the screeching of the brakes set off a stabbing pain behind his eyes. He pressed his palms against his temples. "I need a drink," he muttered.

"Here, sit, I'll grab you something," Lola offered, but he shook his head.

"I need to get something for Evie to eat. God knows she didn't get a three-course meal from the bloody Templars."

"Jacob, fucking sit down," Lola said more insistently, "You look like hell,"

He could only imagine. He felt like he'd stood on the tracks and let Bertha roll right over him. "Yeah, all right," he relented and sat heavily down across from where Lola had been sitting.

"Anthony!" Lola called sharply, "Wake up." The man sleeping in the corner hummed in his sleep but didn't move. Lola rolled up a stray newspaper and hit him over the head with it and he jerked awake. "You've got a job."

"What's that?" Anthony asked, bleary-eyed.

"Go find him and the Missus something to eat that doesn't come from a can," Lola said, pulling a clip from her pocket and withdrawing a few banknotes. Anthony sighed resignedly and stood to make his way onto the station platform. "And not from a bottle either!" Lola called after him.

A smile pulled at the corner of Jacob's mouth. There was something comforting in the easy camaraderie of the Rooks, like veins that connected the boroughs together. They were a sight better than the Blighters, that was for sure. 

Lola set a bottle of gin on the table and sat down across from him. "I've got some places to run to in the city. Is there anything you or Evie need before I go?"

He shook his head. "Thank you."

She pat his shoulder as she walked past, scooping up her account book and hopping down off the coupler to the station outside, leaving Jacob alone in the car and giving him really his first chance to take a breath and acknowledge what had happened. All of it.

Roth was a whole tangled mess of complicated loyalties and even more complicated emotions that he wasn't keen on involving himself in. Evie was a problem that he couldn't fix, not all at once, and certainly not right now. The memory of Henry slipping just beyond his grasp was one of self-loathing and a deeper-seated fear of losing the people around him one by one. 

Jacob uncorked the bottle of gin and drank until he had to stop to breathe. 

The centrepoint on which all the other pieces hinged had a face and a name. Crawford Starrick. 

All of London seemed to revolve around the man, and that extended to Jacob's life as well. The very train he sat in was a product of Starrick's business industry and he was the one who had given it to Kaylock. The gin he was drinking didn't bear Starrick's name, but the bottle it was in was sure to have been produced in one of his factories. The whole of London reeked of Starrick and despite his best efforts to shut out the Templar's influence, Jacob lived in a city that was wholly a product of the Order.

That's what Evie didn't seem to understand. She could try to stop Starrick from getting the shroud all she wanted, but it didn't change the fact that London was mired in the Templar's sole purpose. But maybe it was better that way. Leave her to her books and her studies and all the things that she thought were important. He could get his hands dirty in sifting through the muck of the Order's operatives. She could piece it together into some kind of meaning.

But his dealings with Roth, saving Evie, and failing to save Henry, only served to increase his fervor. Only when Starrick was gone and his entire empire in London was dismantled would there be time for things like continuing the legacy of the Assassins. Which included, he admitted grudgingly, his father.

He grimaced as he took another drink, wishing his tolerance for alcohol was lower so that he could be as blissfully drunk as he was as a teenager. Jacob had a lot of scars from fistfights he didn't remember starting. It wasn't _befitting_ of an Assassin, Ethan would say, it violates the basic tenets of the creed. 

Jacob generally told him to shove off. His father had nothing short of derision for the traditions of the Brotherhood when the Council made some decision he objected to, so to expect Jacob to live and die by those same ideas was hypocritical at best. It wasn't the creed his father wanted him to follow—it was the sense of genteel that followed his father around like a foul odor. According to George Westhouse, Ethan had been more relaxed in his younger days, but after Cecily died, he seemed to harden into the monolith Jacob knew him as.

Evie never saw their father like Jacob had. Some part of him still believed, rather cynically, that the reason Ethan favored Evie was that she was the closest thing he had to Cecily. In truth, it was because Evie sought him out. She held him with the same regard as the philosophers and legendary Assassins she would ramble on about for hours if given the opportunity.

She drove him absolutely mad. But she was the only family he claimed. That was why Starrick had to die—he couldn't let anyone destroy what he had left.

"Mr. Jacob, sir?"

He broke from his thoughts to see Anthony, holding a large paper bag out to Jacob like it was a shield. Jacob looked between Anthony and the bottle in his hand he hadn't even realized was empty. How long had he been here? How long had Evie been by herself?

He gave Anthony a rushed word of thanks and snatched the bag from the man's hands, leaping across the coupler without further acknowledgment. He made his way into the first car and found Evie sleeping, which brought some measure of relief. She was fine. She would be fine.

"Evie," he whispered, right over her ear, "Evie, wake up."

She groaned softly and he pressed his nose against her forehead, waiting.

Then, he ducked out of the way as her hand came up towards him in a closed fist. Jacob laughed and stumbled back into the armchair behind him, dragging it forward so that it was closer to the bed.

"One of these days, I'm going to get you," Evie promised, looking over at him with mock scorn. 

"I'm sure I'll rue the day." Jacob slipped into the banter easily. It was better than trying to deal with the schism between them. "Scone?" He asked as he opened the bag. 

"Cheers," She replied, though Jacob's smile faded somewhat when he saw how hard her hand shook as she reached out to him. Blood loss, lack of food, lack of sleep. That was it, nothing more to be worried about.

She ate slowly and deliberately, grimacing after every bite. Jacob pretended like he was more interested in his own food than watching her, but he couldn't stop himself from glancing over to her every few seconds. Finally, Evie gave a weary sigh and asked, "Can I help you, Jacob?"

"Funny," he replied, "That's the question I wanted to ask you."

"I'm fine, thank you."

He inhaled deeply, and exhaled just even slower, meeting Evie's withering glare with his own stubborn inability to back down where she was concerned. They held that deadlock for several seconds, each daring the other to back down, until Evie shifted and must have aggravated one of her many injuries because she winced and ducked her head.

Jacob sighed again, leaning down to the half-full bottle of whiskey at his side. He uncorked it and held it out to her and she took a sip before making a face of disgust. He was about to ask her what she would prefer instead when the door behind them slammed open and Lola appeared, her cheeks flushed and breathing heavy. "They found Mr. Green."

Evie tried to sit up and Jacob put a hand behind her back to help her up. "Where?" He asked.

Lola swallowed hard. "He's going to hang at Newgate. In an hour."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Evie pushed him aside, trying to stand, though she wasn't doing a very good job of it. "Let's go."

Jacob wasn't listening to her. He was frozen in place, like his body needed to catch up with his thoughts, which were barreling towards the horrible realization that not only had he abandoned Henry, he had left without even trying to help. He had practically given him over to the Templars. Damn any excuse he had made to Evie or Lola or to himself because if Henry and Evie's places had been reversed, he would have fought tooth and nail to get her back. Now Henry _was_ going to die and it would be his fault. 

"Jacob!" Evie said, then doubled over. The sound of her rattling breath shook him back to the present and he jumped to his feet, putting an arm around her as she stood back up. She tried to push him away but he held on to her as he looked over to Lola. 

"Run ahead and get a carriage ready."

"Aye, sir!" She said, catching the edge of the door frame and swinging around it as she left the car.

Jacob looked down at Evie, trying to decide whether to speak his mind or not. It probably wasn't worth much, but he had to try. "Evie...maybe you should—"

"I am _not_ going to stay here," she said, even as she let out another series of hacking coughs. 

"You'll be a liability." Jacob shot back.

"Well, maybe if I'm there..." she paused to catch her breath and took a step forward, "You'll actually try to save him."

That was uncalled for, and Jacob let go of her, the already raw sense of guilt in his chest stinging with this new blow. "You can't even walk, Evie. Look at yourself."

Evie gave him a merciless glare, then reached for the whiskey he had set aside without remembering to cap, and downed half of what remained. She slammed the bottle back down, splashing liquor on the papers scattered on the table, and wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand. "Are we going?"

Fuck's sake. "Fine." Jacob paused just long enough to pull a coat for Evie from the closet in the back of the car, which she pulled on, struggling to button it with one hand, but not letting him get close enough to help. When she did finally get it, he slung her good arm around his neck and helped her down onto the station platform, where she immediately let go of his hand. She was unsteady, but she didn't break pace as they ran through Waterloo, weaving through the crowds of people pushing past one another to get to the platforms. 

Evie stopped short as they reached the large flight of stairs that descended down onto the main road. Jacob raised his eyebrows and Evie scoffed but accepted his hand. Together, they made their way down to the street and she stumbled to a halt, putting a hand on her knee to brace herself as she panted. Jacob fought back the urge to say 'I told you so,' and instead looked around for Lola. When he couldn't spot her, he put his fingers to his lips and let out a piercing whistle. The sound of wheels crunching against stone grew louder until a Clarence carriage came into view, Lola at the reins.

Jacob braced himself to fight Evie about driving the carriage, but let out a brief sigh of relief when she wordlessly opened the door to the carriage, and two other Rooks inside helped her in. Jacob stepped up onto the driver's platform, Lola moving to the side to accommodate him.

"Newgate?" He asked and Lola nodded. Jacob snapped the reins and the horse nickered as Jacob urged him on. The carriage picked up speed, Jacob turning the corners with inches to spare. Soon, they were screaming across Waterloo bridge and despite his pulse pounding in his throat and the frustration that seemed to be eating away at him from the inside, Jacob smiled. 

This was his chance to put things right with Evie. 

The docks were alive as they passed, despite the early hour, but Jacob bullied his way through the hackneys and omnibuses with practiced confidence. London had quickly become his home and along with that came the ease of being in his own.

A crowd was already gathering by the time they reached the square in front of Newgate. Jacob's reckless sort of joy faded as he saw the gallows that had been constructed in front of the prison. Capital punishment had fallen out of favor in England, but it was by no means abolished. Starrick seemed to be using that to his advantage.

Jacob jumped down just in time to take Evie's hand as she opened the carriage door. When she saw the platform that had been built in the square, the blood drained from her face and she swayed slightly, holding onto Jacob for support. 

"We'll get him as they bring him out," Jacob said as Lola and the other Rooks assembled behind him, "Lola, stay here with Evie. You two, with me."

Evie opened her mouth to protest but Jacob was already gone, slipping through the crowds with the Rooks on his heels. He picked out nearly a dozen policemen and a dozen more of Starrick's thugs, though the latter were clustered in the alleys around the square whereas the bobbies were more concerned with keeping the crowd at bay. Where some were shouting for the hanging to commence early, others were screaming out against the very notion. It was chaos and that chaos clung to the square outside Newgate like a thick cloud of smog.

"Watch the entrance, let me know when they come out with Henry. You, keep watch on the Blighters, make sure they don't stir up trouble."

The two men nodded and peeled off into the crowd. Jacob squinted at the gallows, trying to decide if he could get past the police without immediately being noticed. They were stationed tightly around the wood platform with only a couple of metres between the other. He couldn't get past them without removing an officer at a strategic point. If only Freddie were there to call off the goons—but Jacob had neither seen nor heard from him in days and it was too late now to try and seek him out.

A rough plan in mind, Jacob turned and shoved back to the outskirts of the mob. Evie was bent down against the carriage, but she straightened when she saw Jacob approaching. Her skin was as ashen as the London sky, and he clenched his jaw. 

"Evie, please," he asked, not above begging at this point. "You look like you're going to be ill."

"Damn you, Jacob Frye," she hissed. Lola shook her head at him, warning him not to press further. 

Jacob let out a string of curses, nearly missing the sharp whistle that sounded from the direction of Newgate.

"Henry," he said, and broke away to move back into the crowd. Evie, to his profound frustration, followed, lagging at half his speed but moving determinedly nonetheless. He couldn't concentrate on two things at once, didn't she realize she was only making his job harder? If he was going to save Henry he had to...he had to...

Any semblance of a plan died in his mind as two men dragged a third up the gallows' steps. It was obviously Henry—Jacob had been around him enough to be able to pick him out from a distance. There was a sack over his head, but he hung stiffly between the guards as they dragged him out. 

Evie caught up with him, gasping for breath as she stopped short next to him.

"Evie..." He started to say.

"Well don't just stand there!" She stammered breathlessly.

The ground beneath Jacob seemed to give way like the sky was crashing down around him and splitting the earth into chunks of rock and debris. The world around him slowed, the shouts of the mob dulling to a soft din as he watched the prison guards stand Henry up and place a noose around his neck. Even after they had done so, they still held onto him, and Henry's head lolled forward.

Then, a sickeningly familiar figure stepped up onto the platform. Crawford Starrick held up a hand and the crowd hushed, silence rippling out over the crowd in a chilling wave. Next to him, Evie froze, her expression suddenly shifting from anxiety to outright terror.

"This man," Starrick said, his voice carrying over the square and yet still sounding impossibly soft, "Is one of the leaders of the notorious and violent street gang known as the Rooks." 

A murmur of dissent broke out among the people, with shouts of protest mingling with the general commotion, but Starrick continued, unfazed. "He and his band of criminals have ravaged the streets of London for long enough. It is time we show these 'Rooks' what we think of the terror they bring."

"Jacob!" Evie shouted next to him.

He stood, transfixed as one of the guards let go of Henry, who sagged to the side, and moved to the side. Jacob's breath caught in his throat as he came to the answer of what seemed so wrong, that he couldn't place until he reached out with his second vision, trying to find some path through.

"Jacob, do something!"

The trapdoor was pulled and Henry's body dropped to a roar from the crowd. Evie wailed next to him and he pulled her into his arms. "Evie, come on, we have to go."

"No," she sobbed, "No, you bastard!" Evie tried to push away from him, landing a few feeble blows as he pulled her through the mob towards the carriage. Her words strung together into an incoherent series of harsh sounds that wracked through her body.

The world split again, this time into a memory overlaid over the present as he dragged Evie away. 

Evie.

_"Evie, will you please open the door."_

_Silence. Jacob took a deep breath and pushed open the door to be met with a blade to his throat. He pulled up short, bringing up a hand to push Evie's knife away._

_"Jesus, Evie."_

_She dropped the knife and it clattered to the ground. Her hair was a mess, her face red from crying. She put her hands on his chest and shoved, but she couldn't even move him backward. Jacob ignored her, putting his arms around her and pulling her close to him even though she fought against the contact._

_"Don't pretend like this means anything to you," she said, drawing in a ragged breath, "We both know you hated him."_

_"But you didn't," Jacob replied. He had watched her tear herself apart when the doctor had announced that Ethan Frye was in the last stages of Tuberculosis. She refused to eat, to sleep, to do anything but sit at their father's side as pleurisy overtook him._

_Evie gave up fighting him and pressed her forehead into his shoulder. "I should have done more."_

_"You did everything you could."_

_She pulled back, shaking her head. "Then why wasn't it enough?"_

_Why wasn't it enough?_

Evie managed to get an arm free of Jacob's grasp as they reached the carriage and scratched at his face. He yelped and let go of her, and she stumbled before falling hard to the ground. He pressed a hand to his face, feeling it come back wet, but he knelt next to Evie as Lola approached.

"Evie, look at me," he said softly.

She shook her head, murmuring the word 'no,' over and over again in a gut-wrenching mantra. 

"Evie, he was already dead."

She shook her head violently. "You're lying. You're a fucking liar, that's what you are."

"This was a show. There was nothing we could have done."

Then why wasn't it enough?

Evie pressed her head to her knees, her sobs quieting to sharp gasps of pain as she rocked back and forth. Jacob put his arms around her, pressing his head against her hair. "Evie, I'm so sorry. This is my fault. This is all my fault."

Her face was a distorted mess of rage and sorrow when she looked up to him. "Yes. Yes, this is." She pushed out of his arms and shakily got to her feet. Jacob watched her climb back into the carriage, flinching with every step and movement.

Jacob took a few steps forward in a daze, the world blurring together and the sound drowning out around him. It was as though all the color and distinction had been sucked away from the world, leaving only an indistinct, gray fog. He didn't realize he was climbing up onto the carriage and preparing to drive until Lola gently took the reins from him, nudging him to the other side of the driver's seat. 

_"I'm worried about you, Evie. Is that a crime?"_

Jacob could hear his own voice in the memory clearer than anything else around him. He closed his eyes and pressed his hands against his forehead. He couldn't stop it when a flashback happened, he never could. Every nerve in his body lit up, electric, as images shifted in the darkness behind his eyelids.

"I'm worried about you, Evie. Is that a crime?

"I don't need you to be worried." She said shortly, "I need you to get back to the mission."

Jacob slammed his hand down on the map Westhouse had provided—he'd barely glanced at it. "Damn the mission."

"We can't! This was what father was doing when...this was his last mission. We have to finish it for him."

"No, you have to finish it for him," Jacob said, disgust rising in his voice, "Because you're Ethan Frye's perfect daughter who always has to be perfect in every way." He met her gaze with unwavering steel. "Thank God we can finally move past that."

Evie's breath hitched and regret flooded his chest. That had been too far. That had been cruel. 

It didn't matter. She wouldn't give him time to apologize before she drew herself up to his height and spat, "Yes, thank God. Maybe now that our father is dead you'll pull your head out of your arse and actually contribute to our cause."

"How?" Jacob retorted, "By sitting in an office reading books all day? No thank you, I'd rather be killing Templars."

"Fuck you."

"Fuck _you_."

Evie balled her hands into fists and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her with such force that the picture on the wall next to the door fell, the glass shattering as it hit the hardwood floor.

Jacob yelled, a wavering sound that increased in both pitch and volume until his voice cut out. He pivoted and punched through the wall, wincing as his hand burst through the flimsy wood paneling but reveling in it nonetheless. He had taken far too many lectures in his father's office to leave it unscathed.

"What the _hell_ is going on," George Westhouse's voice cut in behind him. "Your sister is in hysterics. Can I not leave you two alone for twenty bloody minutes?" He gestured to the newly-made hole in the wall. "And now you're destroying the house, excellent."

"Why won't she talk to me?" Jacob asked, to George but also to any kind of God or all-seeing figure that might care to answer.

"I don't know," George deadpanned, "It couldn't possibly be because of your abrasive personality and total lack of class."

Jacob made a disgusted sound and crossed his arms over his chest, pretending to examine the map he had already decided was worthless. He heard George make a soft sound of annoyance behind him and he turned to see the older Assassin picking up the shattered picture.

"Evie did that, not me." 

George shook out the broken pieces of glass and moved towards him, the picture outstretched. Jacob took it from him reluctantly and examined the photograph. It had been taken two years prior. He and Evie had traveled out with their father to Birmingham on business and Ethan had remarked upon passing a photographer that the last picture he had of them was when they were twelve. Evie had strong-armed him into participating. The photo was an illusion of a family that wasn't broken. 

Knowing the truth only made the illusion hurt more.

"You have to be there for Evie," George said. "You might not have harbored any great affection for your father, but she did. And now you're what she has left."

Jacob looked at the picture again, at Evie, the smile in her eyes as she leaned against their father, her hand holding Jacob's. Without her, he would have left years ago. He had left in fact and he'd come back for her. Because she was his sister whether she liked it or not.

"Every time I try to help, she pushes me away," Jacob said, pleading for some kind of direction. 

George shook his head. "I know you're adults now and you don't like to listen to us old sods,"—he and Jacob both laughed softly—"But Jacob, really. Evie is desperately asking you for help in the only way she knows how. She's not like you, she doesn't like talking and finding solutions to problems. She knows where she's going and how to get there. She just wants to make sure you'll be with her when she goes."

Jacob was silent for a long moment as he processed George's words. He was right, Jacob could feel it in the weight the truth always carried. 

"So what do I do?" He asked softly.

George clapped a hand on Jacob's shoulder. "I don't know. But maybe ask her what she wants instead of assuming you know."

"And what if it's different from what I want?"

"Then you figure it out." George turned and called over his shoulder as he shut the door behind him. "You always have."


	5. We Who Were Living

_After the torchlight red on sweaty faces_

_After the frosty silence in the gardens_

_After the agony in stony places_

_The shouting and the crying_

_Prison and palace and reverberation_

_Of thunder of spring over distant mountains_

_He who was living is now dead_

_We who were living are now dying_

_With a little patience_

_-_ T.S. Eliot, _The Waste Land_

* * *

Evie knew something was wrong. 

There should have been more feeling, more sensation. But the world around her was merely superficial cutaways and within her was a hollow, gaping stillness. The thin threads of feeling she had grasped onto had snapped, setting her adrift in an ocean of numbness, devoid of any conscious emotion.

Too much had happened all at once. Like a burn so severe it destroyed the nerves, Evie's heart was frayed and tired. Jacob hadn't lied to her when he'd said Henry was already dead, but even her pitiful insistence that he couldn't be dead was mechanical, spoken more from instinct than any real feeling.

Henry was dead. She may as well have pulled the trigger.

When the carriage rolled to a stop, it took several seconds to register that there had been any change at all, let alone leaving the carriage. The door swung open and Jacob stepped up on the runner board. "Come on, Evie."

She didn't reply. She couldn't--the words she needed flitted away the moment she tried to recall them. 

"Evie?" He asked cautiously, "Evie can you hear me?"

She blinked, furrowing her brows slightly. Of course, she could hear him. The sound just didn't mean anything.

When she didn't move, Jacob reached towards her and took her by the hand. Evie let herself be guided out of the carriage and something in Jacob's appearance triggered a brief flash of lucidity. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his jacket had several small holes burned through the fabric. What had happened? More importantly: why was she only noticing this now?

She didn't recognize where they had stopped, though she felt she should have. There were memories of this place, but they all seemed disconnected, the shapes off-kilter and the geometry skewed. A train station. They were getting on the train.

Jacob guided her up a short flight of stairs, her movement sluggish, like she had cinder blocks tied to her feet and pulling her back down to the ground. The edge of her boot caught against the final step and she stumbled forward. Jacob grabbed at her and her previously dislocated arm jolted as her weight pulled against it. Evie's vision split.

He was going to hurt her, and he was going to drag it out as long as possible. She had no doubt that he would make good on his threats. He would keep her until she broke, until there was no trace of humanity left in her. He was going to hurt her and she couldn't stop it, but why did  _ it have to hurt so much? _

She let out a strangled cry of alarm and jerked back from Jacob, pulling her arm free and falling hard on the ground. A few people around them gasped and stepped back as Jacob knelt down next to her. 

His voice, taut with worry echoed in her head like the screech of metal against metal. Evie squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her hands over her ears. What was  _ happening? _

He was responsible for this, wasn't it? He was the reason all of this was happening. She thought the man putting his arms around her was her brother, but she couldn't be sure. Jacob wouldn't hurt her, but the person in front of her was going to, no matter what she did. When he picked her up, she managed a sharp "No!" but she pushed against him with little effect.

Jacob tightened his grip around her and Evie dragged in a deep breath, looking up at her brother as a well of shame pooled in her chest. "Jacob?" She asked, though his name sounded strange in her mouth.

"Right here, Evie."

No, Jacob wasn't the one responsible for this. Starrick had been the one who'd hurt her, and even if Evie's own frustration with her brother clouded her judgment, it wasn't his fault. It wasn't  _ his fault _ . 

"You're bleeding again," Jacob murmured, and Evie did register at that moment the pain that tore up the side of her chest and down her thigh as the world came brutally into focus. The pain was so intense it cast a dizzying cloud of black over her vision, like storm clouds rapidly encroaching on the horizon.

When she blinked, the scenery had changed to the familiarity of the first car of the Rooks' train. Jacob was leaning over her, and his expression melted into relief when she met his gaze.

"Welcome back," he said, the smile in his voice painfully forced, "I thought we'd lost you there,"

Evie pushed herself up so that she was resting on her forearms. "What happened?" She slurred.

"You blacked out, that's what happened." He crossed his arms over his chest and settled back into the armchair he had pulled up to the bedside. "I think you were delirious, because started saying all kinds of things, and I wasn't able to wake you up." He spoke quickly, steadily, but there was a wavering note of panic in his voice. She couldn't remember any of what he was saying, but he seemed genuinely rattled by what he was describing.

She eased herself back down, staring up at the ceiling with a miserable resignation. She could feel the weight of his worry on her own shoulders and it didn't help that she couldn't find it within herself to feel anything at all. The only thing that had existed to her was, for those brief moments, the excruciating memory of Starrick. His breath on her face, the chafe of his clothes on her skin, the ghosts of hands holding her down, and then his about-face to treating her gently. The disparity in his behavior was only made more frightening by the sense that it wasn't simply his veneer of politeness. Whatever Starrick had been thinking was genuine. 

No. She couldn't let herself think about it. Evie tried to fill the space in her mind with some better memory, but the first thing she latched onto was Henry, standing with him over their little book of pressed flowers. A book he would never finish. He was dead. He had died the moment he fell from the carriage and Evie knew it. She had felt it like the ache in her long-ago fractured arms when a storm was approaching. There was a weight and a realness that left his body as she and Jacob had both reached out simultaneously, both coming up far too short.

It was too much. Waves of guilt and grief crashed against each other with ferocity and Evie realized as her breathing became rapid and shallow that she couldn't deal with any of it.

Jacob. Jacob was in front of her, he was worried about something. This was a problem she could fix. 

Evie inhaled once, twice, before settling her expression into a calculated calm. "I'm okay," she assured him, though her words were hollow in the face of her rising panic.

"No, you're not," he said firmly, "And frankly, I'm tired of hearing you lie through your teeth."

"You're looking at me like I'm a kicked dog on the side of the street," Evie protested, "I'm sorry I frightened you but..."

Jacob's shoulders tightened. "Evie..."

"Don't give me that."

"You said before that you didn't want to talk about it," Jacob said, spreading his hands in a helpless gesture, "But as I said, you were delirious and you were saying...some pretty horrible things, if I'm going to be honest with you."

"What kind of things?" She demanded.

He didn't have to say anything. His lack of response was answer enough. Her breath froze in her lungs. He was right--she  _ didn't _ want to talk about it, but they were hurtling towards it anyways. Unwelcome tears pricked at the corners of her eyes but Evie willed them back, biting her tongue hard as she fought to keep her expression neutral. 

They watched each other for what felt like hours. Jacob's deep-set, brown eyes were wide, his distress clearly visible in every line in his face. Finally, he sighed heavily. "What did he do to you?" He whispered, "Earlier, you looked like you didn't even recognize me."

"What did I say?" Evie countered, not sure if she really wanted to know, but needing to know nonetheless.

He shook his head slowly. "I was trying to stop the bleeding and you were begging me to stop...to stop hurting you and that if I did, you would stop fighting me. That you would  _ stay _ ." He looked down, his adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. When he looked back up, there were tears shining in his own eyes. "Do I even want to know what caused that?"

Evie closed her eyes. She couldn't meet his eyes as she tried to piece together the words that refused to string together into a coherent sentence. How could she even explain to Jacob the worst of it? After another moment of silence, she took a deep breath. "You asked me why all my injuries had been treated already. I don't fully understand myself, but after..." she paused, trying to find some way to speak her mind delicately before giving up, "Well, you know anyway, it hardly matters." The exact words were foggy. Evie remembered the nauseating dread more than what Starrick actually said to her, but she knew the purpose in his words. "He implied that he wanted to keep me alive so that he could...because he wanted--"

"Stop," Jacob cut her off and she opened her eyes. As she watched, twin teardrops made their way down his face and he wiped at his eyes roughly with the back of his hand. "God, I'm so sorry."

"I don't know why it scared me so badly," Evie murmured. "It shouldn't have, but I do remember thinking that he was the only person in all of London who could make good on that threat. He seemed  _ excited _ by the prospect."

"I'm going to kill him," Jacob said suddenly.

"What?"

"Tonight. I'm going to kill him before he can hurt anyone else."

Evie shook her head, struggling to push herself up to a sitting position. "No, Jacob, you can't. Not alone. Are you insane?"

"I'm angry, is what I am!" Jacob stood up, the chair sliding back as he did so, "He's taken away everything, hasn't he?"

"I'm still here," Evie protested.

He narrowed his eyes. "Are you?"

"Yes!" Evie said, more on principle than belief.

Jacob made a low, growling sound and turned to leave. Evie, in a moment of blind panic and desperation, shoved aside the blankets over her, flinching as the full extent of her injuries swept over her, but she managed to stand anyways. She caught Jacob's shoulder, shivering in the brisk air that flowed through the two open doors on either end of the car. "I won't let you do this."

"No offense, Evie, but really, what could you do to stop me?"

"I'll follow you." She said, her voice steady despite how hard her body shook. "I'll find you and I'll follow you, even if it kills me."

"Stop being selfish, Evie!" Jacob thundered, the sudden increase in volume making Evie step back, instinctively pulling her arms around her. Her obvious distress wasn't lost on Jacob, who gave her a pained look and said much in a much softer voice, "I'm tired of watching the people around me die. Aren't you?"

"That's why I don't want you to go!"

He considered her for a moment. Emotions she couldn't place flashed across his face in sequence before his shoulders slumped. "You're right." She relaxed as he continued. "You're right, I'm sorry."

The heated moment past, Evie now regretted standing up as her heart slammed against her chest and exhaustion ate away at the muscles in her body. She sat down heavily on the bed and looked up at him with half-lidded eyes. "We'll figure something out. I promise. For now, we just need to...recover."

He nodded solemnly, but he didn't meet her gaze. "I think we could all use some sleep." 

She noted again the holes in his jacket and finally placed the odd smell she had noticed before. "Were you in a fire?"

Jacob stiffened. "That's something I'm not prepared to talk about."

"I talked to you."

He nodded his head back and forth, considering. Then, he said flatly, "Maxwell Roth. He burned down the Alhambra with everyone inside of it and..." He reached up a brushed a hand over his mouth, although the movement was disjointed like his arm was connected to strings being manipulated by some perverse puppetmaster. "I made it out. He didn't."

Evie searched her brother's face for a few seconds, trying to fill in the holes in his story. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"About what, the fire? There were other things on my mind, Evie."

"Where you were going. Why would you have even gone to the Alhambra in the first place? He was a Templar, Jacob, you know we can't trust any of them." Especially not you, she added silently, given your history. Once again, she couldn't read the expression on his face, a disconnect that was unfamiliar to her. She had spent her entire life at Jacob's side--now she felt like she barely knew him, who he had become in their few months in London.

"I went to the Alhambra to kill Roth," Jacob said, his voice taut.

She narrowed her eyes. "Don't lie to me. I think I deserve at least that, Jacob Frye." Her voice cut through the air and she was struck with the familiarity her tone carried to their father's, when he was upset.

Jacob must have noticed too, whether consciously or not. "You really want to know what I was doing?"

"That's why I'm asking you."

"Because I've been working with Roth for the last month," Jacob snapped, "And I didn't tell you--"

"After what happened with Pearl Attaway?" Evie exclaimed

Jacob grit his teeth. "And I didn't tell you, because I knew that would be the first thing you brought up."

"Forgive me, brother dear, but you do seem to have made a habit of climbing into bed with the Templars, haven't you?"

That struck a nerve she hadn't intended to hit, and the veins in Jacob's neck bulged as he squared his jaw. "We were dismantling Starrick's empire. And we were getting quite a lot done, actually. But..." He paused, took a deep breath, and looked away before he continued, "You were right. Just like always, you were bloody right, because of course you were."

The gravity of his admission struck her speechless. Jacob exhaled slowly. "It doesn't matter now, does it? Roth is dead. And so is Attaway. So is Elliotson, and Lucy Thorne, and that prick Brudenell, and a hundred others. The only person left of any real consequence is--"

"Crawford Starrick," Evie finished, saying the name aloud simultaneously with her brother. "I promise, Jacob, we'll find some way to kill him. Just...not right now."

"No," he said bitterly, "Just like it wasn't the time to kill anyone else when I did."

She was too tired to argue the same point she had defended time and time again. "It wasn't. And it isn't time now, but it will be soon."

He looked back, meeting her gaze once again. There was a callousness to his expression now. He opened his mouth to say something, but stopped and shook his head. "This isn't something we should be discussing right now. Just get some rest, please."

Evie watched as he left, closing the door to the car behind him with more force than was necessary. She'd always had a sense about him, likely because they were twins, but more so because she had grown up at his side and knew him better than she knew herself. With the threat again of tears blocking her throat, she whispered to the empty train car her last, desperate plea.

"Don't do anything stupid, Jacob."

* * *

Alone in the second car, the only sound the clanking of the factories as they passed through Southwark and the rattling hum of the train along the tracks, Jacob balled his hands into fists and with a harsh roar, turned and slammed his fist into the wall. The impact of metal against his unprotected fist had immediate consequences, blood splitting down his hands and pain ricocheting up through his arm. He breathed heavily through his teeth, welcoming the sensation. Pain was something he knew, something he could deal with.

Unlike watching his sister tear herself apart in her  _ fucking hubris _ .

His eyes went wide as he tangled his fingers in his hair. To him, the solution was so simple. By eliminating Starrick, he would eliminate the greatest threat to London. To postpone it was to bow to fear and that fear was the very thing the Templars used to control London. It had taken hold of Evie with an iron grip now and while he couldn't blame her, he still resented her for letting her own protective inclinations to cloud her judgment.

He sat down heavily on the sofa he had claimed as his own, reaching mechanically for a bottle of gin and finding it was disappointingly empty. He resisted the urge to smash it against the wall. It would be more work for someone else later.

Their father had told them time and time again that emotions were an obstacle they would have to overcome in order to truly succeed as an assassin. Yet, he also fervently taught them that their emotions were the only thing that kept them human. Jacob had always pushed aside trying to reconcile the two--they seemed so mutually exclusive. He would do what needed to be done and he could mourn those who deserved it later. 

Now, he thought he finally understood what Ethan Frye had really meant. He could easily shed his fear for later when the problems were solved and there was time enough for drink and rumination. But Evie had tried to do that and now she was splitting at the seams, everything she tried to keep bottled up spilling out in a toxic flood. It wasn't just Starrick torturing her or some awful specters coming to haunt her. How long had her ruthless calm been a facade to cover months of heartache? How could he even think to cause her more?

For the first time since he had arrived in London, Jacob truly allowed himself to contemplate failure. Not in the logical, objective sense that guided his decisions when hunting his targets. In the emotional sense that he had so long tried to ignore, that his damned father had tried to impress on him. 

If he failed, if he  _ died _ , which failure certainly would mean, what would that do to Evie?

She would die.

He tried to push the thought away as an overinflated sense of what he was worth in his sister's eyes, but he knew in his gut it was the truth. Maybe not physically--Evie would recover from her injuries, would move past the worst of the pain, but it would destroy the part of her that meant something. 

Jacob had never told their father that when they were eighteen, Evie had killed someone. As far as anyone besides the twins knew, Evie's first kill had been on the mission to kill David Brewster. Twenty-one, an age that felt mature enough to be able to handle the consequences of death. But Evie had killed someone when Jacob had escaped from their estate to a pub and had too many drinks and too much anger. He was a good fighter, but six fully-grown men against a gangly teenager was hardly a fair fight. Still, he'd managed to dispatch five when the last had caught him off guard and began to strangle him.

He couldn't remember thinking any good things for his last thoughts, but it turned out he didn't have to. The pressure eased and blood spurted across his face from the man's severed carotid. Evie stood behind him, trembling and though the light was dim, he could see the rage in her eyes, the moonlight reflecting off her bloodied knife to her expression of eery calm. That was the moment he understood why Ethan pressed them so harshly on letting themselves feel. 

Jacob saw three years ago his sister, in that moment, as some merciless angel of death.

If he died while trying to take out Starrick, that was what she would become, no doubt. Maybe if Henry were still alive, maybe if their father hadn't died so recently, she wouldn't cut herself off so abruptly, but where Jacob embraced the raw and vivid pain of life, Evie's response to pain had always been to shut it out. 

With a heavy, discontented sigh, he pushed himself to his feet and made his way into the next car, where a man he didn't recognize at first was speaking animatedly to Lola until Jacob entered. 

"Mr. Frye," the man said, turning to him and when he did so Jacob realized the man was one of Henry Green's informants. He had seen him before, but only briefly as he delivered some quiet message to Henry before slipping off again into the crowd, "I have an urgent message for Mr. Green, but I have not been able to locate him."

Jacob set his jaw before replying a little too callously, "He's dead, mate. Sorry."

The man's eyes went wide and he shook his head slightly, emotions playing across his face in a grim symphony. Then, he settled into a firm stance and met Jacob's gaze. "Then I will pass it on to you. Crawford Starrick will be attending Queen Victoria's ball this evening,"

"Obviously," Jacob said, "He is that much of a prick."

"He plans to assassinate Her Majesty, sir," the man continued hastily, "I've heard it from the guardsmen's barracks, they're planning to infiltrate Buckingham palace and kill the Queen, along with several other members of Parliament."

Jacob looked between the informant and Lola, who had crossed her arms over her chest and was regarding Jacob with an air of quiet alarm. He realized with a jolt that the man was waiting on him to be dismissed, and although he wasn't new to leadership, his relationship with his gang was a cavalier sort of camaraderie that belied formality. "Thank you," Jacob said, and the man nodded before moving past him to leave through the door Jacob had entered. 

He bit the inside of his lip and exhaled through his nose. Of course, the one time he had decided that he would follow Evie's wishes was the one time events dictated he couldn't.

"Jacob?" Lola asked after the silence stretched on for several moments.

What was he supposed to do? He gave Lola a small wave. "I'm fine. Just trying to figure out how I'll go about this." 

She hummed softly. "Let me know if you'll be needing any help." She sat down at the table, ostensibly reading the finance section of a broadsheet. Jacob moved past her and leaned against the cluttered bar counter, forcing himself to keep his breathing steady.

He really had no choice. If Starrick was planning a massacre, it was Jacob's duty as an Assassin to stop him. 

Perhaps for the first time in his life, he really wished Evie would tell him what to do.

She would know immediately if he went off on his own. Her preternatural ability to sense danger had been a hindrance to him on many an occasion. But beyond that, guilt bit at the inside of his throat at the idea of leaving her panicked and desperate as he went off on his own to take on the Grandmaster of the Templar Order. 

Jacob moved back and forth in his mind between, yet again, his obligation and his emotion. He had no qualms about running blindly into what was surely suicide until it came to Evie. He  _ needed _ her and he needed her to be safe. She wasn't in any position to be infiltrating Buckingham palace physically and much less emotionally. He didn't want to think of her as fragile because she never had been, but he also couldn't abide by putting her into more danger. He'd done enough, hadn't he?

His eyes flitted across the countertop and landed on the crate of medical supplies that he had used to stitch Evie back together, just looking for something else to focus on, when his gaze landed on a small, brown glass bottle with a battered paper label. An idea formed in his mind, something at least he could do to ease Evie's worry in the meantime as he found some way of stopping Starrick. Jacob turned to the table, where Lola was absorbed in her reading. Despite the late morning hour, the train car was oddly empty. It felt appropriate somehow.

Jacob didn't let himself debate. He needed to make a decision, now. He looked up at the rack of spirits in front of him, selecting a bottle of Port and two glasses that were more or less clean. Then, he grabbed the small vial of laudanum and slipped it into the interior pocket of his coat. 

As he moved past Lola on his way to the first car, she spoke. "I hope you know what you're doing with that," Lola said softly, not looking up from her newspaper. 

Jacob froze, the contents in his hands nearly slipping. He watched Lola for a moment before she sighed and put her paper down.

"Do you know the correct dosage?"

"I'm not a child," Jacob responded, though the petulance in his voice didn't help his case, "I know opium is one hell of a painkiller."

"You're not going to use it as a painkiller though, are you?"

His stomach twisted. "What makes you say that?"

"The fact that you felt the need to be so furtive. You were obviously trying to hide something from me. There would be no reason to hide it if you just going to give it to Evie as an anesthetic, therefore the only thing that remained is that you had some other intent."

Damn it. "Why do you care?"

Lola's gaze was uncompromisingly harsh. "Because if you don't do it correctly, you'll end up killing your sister, which isn't what I think you want."

Jacob looked away and Lola stood, holding out a hand. "Here."

"I have to do this," Jacob insisted, pulling away, "It's...it's complicated, all right?"

"I won't pretend I'm not concerned about your reasoning," Lola said evenly, "But I don't want you to fuck it up."

Reluctantly, Jacob relinquished the laudanum. Lola plucked one of the glasses out of his hands as well. With practiced dexterity, she measured out a small amount of the brown liquid into the glass, far, far less than Jacob would have used and he realized with a painful stab of guilt that if Lola had not stopped him, he likely would have killed Evie by accident. She handed it back to him and he accepted the glass with a sheepish tentativeness.

"Will you make sure she's all right while I'm gone?" Jacob asked.

Lola nodded. "Of course. We're all family here, ain't we?"

That didn't ease his conscience. Every step Jacob took was like slogging through mud, the part of him opposed to this ridiculous plan shrieking like a pack of harpies. He pressed on, though, trying to find some semblance of determination.

He ducked his head around the canopy that covered the headboard of the bed where Evie was laying, her chest rising and falling slowly enough that he thought for a moment she was sleeping.

She pushed herself up onto her side as he came in, opening her mouth to speak, but Jacob held up a hand and the bottle of wine.

"I brought a peace offering?"

She gave him a weak smile. "Accepted."

Jacob tried not to let his hands shake as he poured Evie's glass of wine, careful to ensure he gave her the right glass and then poured his own drink.

"Cheers," he said quietly, and she laughed softly as they clinked their glasses together. He took a sip and spread his feet apart into a casual stance as he watched Evie. She didn't notice his intense gaze at first, but finally, she drew her eyebrows together quizzically.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Jacob supplied, "I'm just worried about you, that's all."

"Well you don't need to be," she said, deliberately taking another drink to avoid saying anything more. When she had finished her glass, she blinked a few times, her eyes half-lidded. "What..."

Jacob pressed his lips together and set his glass down before kneeling at his sister's side and taking her hand. "I'm sorry. If that's the last thing I get to say to you, please know that from everything in me I am so, so sorry if things go wrong. But I can't in good conscience let Starrick continue. Not for you, not for anyone else."

"Jacob," she said, her voice low and slurred, but still tinged with audible panic, "What did...you do?"

He pressed his forehead to hers, silent tears tracking down his cheeks. "It's going to be all right. I'll make sure it's all right."

She closed her eyes and fell back, her breathing stuttering in a single moment of terror that maybe Lola hadn't been correct, but then Evie's breath resumed its slow rhythm and he lowered his head into his hands. 

He allowed himself just a moment to let himself  _ feel _ . 

Then, he squared his shoulders, got to his feet, and bracing himself for impact, leaped off the coupler of the train. He rolled a few times in the gravel of the tracks, wincing as his back hit the metal rails, and hoping that Evie would understand as he watched the train pull away into the distance. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi catch me with that Jacob has severe depression and Evie has some dissociative disorder or another. Me projecting on my favorite characters? It's more likely than you think!  
> Thank you again for your support, your comments and reactions truly mean the world to me! ~~Honestly, if you want to have a full-on discussion about these characters I'd be more than happy to spend hours psychoanalyzing every last interaction.~~


	6. Then Spoke The Thunder

_Then spoke the thunder_

_DA  
_

_Datta:_ _what have we given?_

_My friend, blood shaking my heart_

_The awful daring of a moment’s surrender_

_Which an age of prudence can never retract_

_By this, and this only, we have existed_

-TS Eliot _, The Waste Land_

* * *

The glimmering lights and imposing facades of Buckingham Palace loomed overhead as Jacob approached the front drive. He had commandeered a carriage and found one of the Rooks to drive him, although he would have much rather driven himself. Mrs. Disraeli had offered him a place in her own carriage considering he was already using her husband’s invitation, but he had politely, firmly declined. He was fond of her but it would be far easier to infiltrate the palace without her hanging off his arm. 

When he handed his invitation to the usher, the man did regard him with suspicion for a moment, but the invitation was genuine. He had no real reason to deny Jacob entry. Sure enough, he sighed and wished Jacob a pleasant evening and the carriage rolled forward onto the palace grounds.

Jacob scanned the drive in front of the palace for any sign of trouble, noting the guards posted at every entrance and patrolling around the front of the building. If Henry’s informant was correct, then not all of these men were truly members of Queen Victoria’s guard. How many of them were Templars in disguise?

The carriage lumbered to a stop and Jacob didn’t hesitate, pushing the door open and landing on the ground with the crunch of rocks beneath his boots. He gave the man driving his carriage a quick salute before turning to where several other partygoers filtered into the palace. They whispered amongst themselves excitedly, propriety be damned, apparently. This was the first public appearance the Queen had made since Prince Albert’s death and the exclusivity of the evening only served to heighten the electric anticipation.

Evie would have been more interested, had she been there with him, but Jacob was singular in his task. He slipped through sparkling brocades and glittering jewels into a side alcove in order to assess the entry hall. To his left were a set of stairs that spiraled up to the second floor and he consulted the note Freddie had delivered to him shortly before Jacob left for Buckingham palace. That was his destination.

Jacob took the steps two at a time, hopping over the velvet divider meant to politely block off the staircase. In practical effect, it did absolutely nothing. No one stopped him as he ascended the stairs where he had agreed to meet Abberline.

The man had hemmed and hawed over the idea of infiltrating the palace guard—for as odd as the police sergeant was, he had an odd proclivity to propriety—but Jacob had managed to convince him of the genuine threat on the Queen’s life. 

For Queen and country, and all that.

While it would be decidedly less than excellent if Starrick managed to assassinate the Queen, he was far more concerned with stopping the Templar Grandmaster than saving the life of a monarch. Kings and Queens rose and fell, empires burned and died, and it was all so much larger a scale than Jacob cared to think about.

He was the soldier on the ground making sure all the delicate cogs could turn in their place and that suited him just fine.

* * *

Evie dreamed of her dying father.

The sound of his rasping coughs and labored breathing were as clear in her dreams as they had been at her home in Crawley, and the sound still jolted through her with as much force as it had the first time. 

She and Jacob knew when Ethan Frye had died, even before George Westhouse came to tell them, but now, Evie knew she could save her father before that inevitable moment arrived, if only she could be at his side.

Evie pounded on the door to her father’s rom, where she had been locked out over those last, fated days on her father’s request. Her voice was distorted and low as she begged for the door to open. It would be her fault if Ethan died and she wasn’t there to help him.

She still remembered clearly as well the night she had been eavesdropping at her father’s office door when he said to Westhouse in a voice heavy with shame and regret. “As much as I blame myself for her death, I blame the twins too. What kind of a man blames his children for their mother dying?”

Perhaps he had intended this to be a reflection on his own shortcomings. Evie could only ask herself: What kind of child could be responsible for the death of both her parents?

Evie’s nails raked against the wood of the door as she screamed, desperate for the door to open and when it finally did, she spilled into the room and the world turned on its axis as it only did in dreaming. But she was too late and she could feel it in her bones. 

The room was empty of sound and air and she dropped to her knees next to the bed, sobbing into the deathly-still chest of, not her father, but her brother.

She was too late. She couldn’t save him, just like she couldn’t save Ethan, or Henry, or countless others who had names and faces and lives, far too many to remember. It was her fault, all her fault.

Evie couldn’t place the exact moment when she moved from dream to waking, but still the only word on her lips was Jacob’s name. The world was foggy and unfocused, but as she blinked and drew herself from sleep, her little room on the train became clearer.

Sitting next to her bed was Lola, who looked up from a book as Evie stirred.

“Where’s Jacob?” Evie mumbled. She didn’t remember why it was so important to her, but she needed to know he was safe.

Lola’s dark expression did nothing to comfort her. “He’s gone. Starrick is planning to assassinate Queen Victoria. Jacob went to Buckingham Palace to stop him.”

She tried to continue, to say more, but Evie wasn’t listening. She’d heard the words ‘he’s gone’ and immediately pushed back the blankets that were tucked around her. Evie’s bare feet hit the ground and her knees gave out beneath her. Faint recollection stirred in her mind of Jacob offering her a drink before the world began to fracture and dissipate.

He’d drugged her, that bastard. If he lived through this she was absolutely going to murder him. 

Evie caught her breath, pushing herself up to her hands and knees. Lola was beside her on the ground in an instant, the older woman’s hand on her back. 

“I’m all right,” Evie protested, letting out a measured exhale. Her stomach churned as the world seemed to drop out from beneath her, but she grit her teeth and leaned heavily on her bed as she pulled herself to her feet.

Lola didn’t try to hide her unease, but Evie wasn’t about to let that slow her down. “Where did he go?” 

“Jacob?” Lola shook her head, “The palace, for the Queen’s ball, but Miss Evie, you’re not in any shape to go after him.”

“I have to, don’t I?” Evie asked, her voice strangled, “What if he gets hurt?”

“What if you get hurt?” Lola countered.

She set her jaw, even as she swayed precariously with the motion of the train. “So you think I should leave him to die?”

“I think you should trust his competence.”

Evie brushed past Lola and pulled open the drawers of her bureau, not letting herself acknowledge how hard her hands were shaking. She fastened a corset around her waist and ignoring the pain that shot up her side as the boning pressed against the avulsion in her side and compressed her injured ribs. Good. The pain would keep her awake.

Lola watched her as she buttoned up the nicest waistcoat she owned and pulled her hair up into its usual chignon, the hairstyle she had done her best to copy from the few photographs she had of her mother. 

“If you have any plans to stop me,” Evie said without looking away from her reflection in the small mirror above her bureau, “I’ll politely suggest you not get in my way.”

“I was going to ask if you need help.”

Evie pressed her lips together in a thin line. “No. If neither Jacob nor I come back, well...the Rooks probably aren’t fated to last much longer.”

Lola grabbed her arm as she tried to swing past her out the door. “Evie,”

Evie had never heard her speak like this, and she paused, meeting Lola’s gaze as she said, “We’re counting on you. Don’t die.”

Evie grimaced, recalling the memory of saying those very words to Jacob on their first mission. What had only been two months prior felt like an eternity, something out of a past life. 

She nodded and with that, pulled out of Lola’s grip and braced herself as she leapt off the train.

* * *

Jacob’s hidden blade hissed out and into the neck of the Templar standing watch on the rooftops of the palace. Starrick’s men had kidnapped several members of the royal guard and donned their uniforms. It was elegant, in any respect—Jacob could admire that. While subterfuge wasn’t his preferred method of assassination, it certainly was efficient.

As efficient as a thin blade severing the carotid and plunging into the nerves at the back of the neck. The Templar collapsed with hardly a sound and Jacob tapped his gauntlet, the blade retracting back into place. 

The gravel on the rooftop crunched beneath his feet as he dropped low to the ground to approach the final guard who had taken up position on the edge of the roof. He was a few yards away when one of his boots scraped across the ground and he cursed silently as the Templar turned to face him, bayonet at the ready.

Jacob launched himself forward, withdrawing his Kukri blade from its sheath on his thigh. The metal flashed in the moonlight, crashing against the Templar’s rifle with the sickening shriek of steel on steel.

The Templar knew he was going to die the moment before he did. His eyes went wide as the wicked hooked edge of Jacob’s kukri slashed against his throat. Blood spattered out on the ground as he jumped out of the way. Usually, he didn’t care about his clothes, the blood just another warning for would-be ruffians to stay out of his way. But he didn’t want to draw unwanted attention.

Jacob caught the man as he collapsed, closing his eyes in his usual gesture of respect, one of the few rituals he’d adopted from the Brotherhood without complaint. 

He grabbed the the top of one of the marble facades that rose above the roof and scanned the guests mingling below, for once in his life trying to think like his sister. Surely, Starrick wouldn’t be so careless as to only have one line of defense. So where was his failsafe?

“You!” A shout from behind him broke his concentration. Jacob whipped around to see another one of the Queen’s guard leveling his gun at him, “What are you doing up here?”

Jacob cocked his head to the side, assessing the man. He wasn’t one of Starrick’s men and as convenient as it would be to silence the man with lethal methods, he could use any potential allies. 

“Roof inspection,” Jacob said, giving the man a cavalier salute. Then, he dropped to his knees and slid down off the top of the roof to the balcony below.

* * *

Every step lit another fire in her body more intense than the last, until at last Evie gave in and stopped. She put a hand against the brick columns of the tunnel over her and doubled over, panting hard. She could work through injury, she had done it before. But the pressure in her ribs and the searing pain from her waist was pushing her close to blacking out. 

“Jacob,” she said aloud, her voice ragged and low, “I can do this for Jacob.”

Her sheer willpower got her five more steps before she dropped to her knees and squeezed her eyes shut. What was she doing? If anything she would only be a hindrance to Jacob.

But there was some deeper instinct driving her, an innate sense that he was in danger. It was the same instinct she had nearly brushed off three years ago, that Jacob could handle himself in whatever scrape he got himself into. 

And if she hadn’t listened to that voice then, Jacob would have died. She couldn’t risk the same now.

Evie looked up as a small Hansom cab slowed to a stop, a young couple who were rather handsy with each other exiting on the street opposite her. With Herculean effort, Evie pushed herself to her feet, withdrawing her revolver from its holster. As she approached the cab, the man grinned at her.

“Are you needing a ride, miss?”

She aimed the gun at the man’s chest. “As a matter of fact, I am.” He made a sound like a squeak as she continued, “You wouldn’t mind if I borrowed your cab, would you?”

‘G-go right ahead, Miss,” he stammered, hastily climbing down from his seat at the back. The horse nickered softly, but otherwise remained calm as Evie climbed up into the driver’s seat, hissing as she moved. 

The man ran off, shouting for police, and she holstered her weapon, the safety still securely in place around the flintlock. Although if the man had been belligerent, she would have had no qualms about removing it and putting him in real danger.

Evie exhaled shakily and snapped the reins, arranging herself within her mental map of the city. The dread swelling in her throat became almost unbearable, but she pressed on. She had to.

Nothing would happen to Jacob. She wouldn’t allow it.

* * *

Jacob hit the balcony in a crouch, the shock of the landing rolling up his legs. 

“Oh!” A woman, startled by his sudden appearance, jumped back, clutching her chest.

“Dear God!” Cried the man escorting her, “Have you gone mad?”

“Nearly,” Jacob snapped back as he got to his feet and took off into the main hallway. He clambered down the steps unceremoniously, dodging out of the way of several other guests on their eager tours around the palace.

In the courtyard, Jacob turned a full circle as he assessed the crowd. Aside from the guards stationed at every door, there was no sign of danger. That didn’t mean he was in the clear—Starrick was still here, after all.

“Jacob! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

He bit back a curse and plastered a terse smile on his face. “Mrs. Disraeli, now is really not a good time.”

“Nor will it ever be. I know how you daring types always have some place or other to dash off too,” she said, taking his arm, “It’s been simply awful having to laugh along to everything that twit Gladstone says. The man is so convinced he’s funny but in reality he’s more boorish than a funeral.”

Jacob sighed through his nose. “Please, there’s a matter I need to attend to with some urgency.”

Mrs. Disraeli’s eyes went wide at the same time a hand clamped down on Jacob’s shoulder. “I believe I can assist you, Mr. Frye.”

Jacob stiffened, pulling away from Mrs. Disraeli as he turned. “Starrick,” he said gravely, “About fucking time.”

“No need to be crass,” Starrick replied, his mouth twisting into something like a smile.

Undeterred, Jacob’s hand went to his kukri, but Starrick shook his head slightly. “That’s not something you’d want to do here, Mr. Frye,”

Jacob’s eyebrows furrowed, but as he looked around, he noted that several guards were watching them intently. They weren’t Templars, but that didn’t matter—pulling out a large knife on one of the richest and most venerated men in London wouldn’t go over well in this setting. Still, Jacob wasn’t about to be cowed.

“What do you want, Starrick?” Jacob hissed.

Starrick replied with a voice seething with venom. “I want you _out of my way_.”

Jacob reacted on instinct, drawing his blade, but Starrick moved faster than he would have thought possible, and it was only after he stumbled back a few steps and heard Mrs. Disraeli and several other guests screaming behind him, that he realized what he’d heard was a gunshot.

A gunshot that had fired a bullet point-blank into his stomach.

Pain surged through his body like every nerve had been dipped in molten lead, and Jacob collapsed to the ground.

* * *

Evie wove through the streets of Westminster, past the crowds of gentlemen leaving pubs and ladies of the evening calling salacious greetings across the roads. Evie plowed through them all, sure that the moment she let herself stop, she would collapse from exhaustion or pain or worry. 

Her trepidation only grew as she drew closer to Buckingham palace, the fear that pumped through her body with every heartbeat like knives in her veins. Over and over she repeated to herself that Jacob was all right, that she could convince him to leave, or help him if he stayed, but it did little to comfort her.

The carriage screeched up the drive in front of the palace and Evie slid down from the driver’s seat, letting the horse continue pulling the carriage away from her. Two figures sat on the side of the road outside the palace and Evie moved towards them, her eyes adjusting to the darkness beyond the palace gates.

Her eyes went wide as she recognized the two figures, one cradling the other in his arms—Sergeant Abberline, holding her brother, whose shirt was stained black in the darkness and his labored breathing telling Evie what she already knew instinctively.

She dropped to her knees in front of them, putting her hand over Jacob’s. “What happened?” She asked hoarsely.

Abberline, dressed in the red uniform of the palace guard, replied in a low voice, “Starrick shot him but he’d managed to convince the other guards it was self-defense. I got him out but I didn’t want to leave him on his own.”

She pushed Jacob’s hair back from the sweat on his forehead before pulling his shirt open to examine the wound. Her heart sank as she saw the amount of blood, more pulsing from the bullet wound with every second. Jacob was pale and shivering and she knew why, though she could hardly bring herself to admit it.

“What can you do?” Abberline asked.

Evie shook her head, her own breathing becoming shallow. “I...I’m not a doctor. Jacob was always better at it than me and Henry was....” Come on Evie, she chided herself, think, think! 

Not that it mattered. From what she could tell, the bullet had pierced through a major artery of some sort, and without proper care Jacob would bleed to death. Even with a doctor’s help, there was no guarantee he would live.

“Miss Frye!” Abberline shouted.

“He’s going to die!” She shot back, her voice even louder than his. This was no minor wound or laceration to be shrugged off with rest and whiskey. Jacob was bleeding out in front of her eyes and she wasn’t skilled enough to be able to treat him. Was anyone?

Realization, a horrible, awful, selfish idea, sparked in her mind. Abberline must have noticed the difference in her expression, the way her face must have gone cold, because he asked softly, “What is it?”

“Stay here with him,” she ordered, “Keep as much pressure on that wound as possible. I’ll...I’ll try to be back as soon as I can.”

“But where are you going?” Abberline called after her, “Miss Frye!”

She ignored him, striding up to the gates where a man in a tailored black suit stopped her. “Do you have an invitation, Miss?”

“I need to speak to Crawford Starrick,” she said, her voice firm despite the way her hands shook.

“That’s a rather large request, don’t you think?”

“He’ll see me,” she said, unwavering, “Tell him that Evie Frye is here to negotiate with him.”

The man eyed her suspiciously, but called over a young boy and instructed him to deliver the message within the palace. 

Evie wiped the blood from her hands on the red lining of her jacket and tried to rehearse what she could possibly say. Intimidation would be futile, but the thought of appearing subservient to him was sickening.

As the minutes passed, Evie glanced back to Jacob every now and again, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she tried to assure herself that this would work. This had to work.

Finally, she saw him. Starrick, in a crisp suit trimmed with blue satin strode with purpose down the main walk to the palace. The usher nodded to her and she walked forward to meet him.

Evie swallowed hard and looked up at him, meeting his gaze as he bowed, taking her hand to kiss it though she didn’t offer it.

She pulled back and hissed, “Bastard.”

“If you’re trying to negotiate, Miss Frye, I’ll warn you that you’re not doing well so far.”

“My brother is dying,” she said flatly, “But I won’t let that happen, not at your hands.”

“Sadly, I cannot reverse the flow of time,” Starrick said, crossing his hands behind his back, “Much as the idea appeals to me.”

“But you do have the key to the Shroud of Eden.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And you hold the location.”

Evie took in a shuddering breath and said the most selfish thing she had ever said in her entire life. “I’ll give it to you. I’ll show you how to find the vault on the condition that you allow me to use it to save my brother.”

Starrick tilted his head to the side as he considered her. “You would trade a precursor artifact for your brother’s life?”

She would trade anything and everything in the world for Jacob. “Do you accept my offer?”

He held her gaze for several seconds, then shook his head. “No, I do think there is something else I will need. I’m sure given my own time I would find the Shroud sooner or later, but there is something else I will accept in return.”

She knit her brows together but he continued before she could ask the tenuous question.

“I would like you, Evie Frye.” 

Her heart stalled in her chest, then began to beat so loud she could hear her blood pumping in her ears. “What?” She whispered.

Starrick brushed a hand down the side of her face and she shuddered, but as she pulled away, he grabbed her wrist and closed the distance between them. “Of all the things to desire in London, you are the most _maddeningly_ captivating. Agree to stay with me, for all that will entail, and I will help you save your brother.”

The world spun out from beneath her, her stomach lurching. No matter how quickly she breathed, she couldn’t seem to get enough air, and every inch of her was screaming to run as far as she possibly could.

But Jacob was dying. Jacob was dying, and if he died, then any life she had left would be without him, and she found herself caught between the two things that frightened her the most in the world.

Her voice shook as she steeled herself, and felt like everything in her was collapsing and burning and tearing itself apart as she murmured the single word that to her ears was as loud as thunder.

“Fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS THIS IS HAPPENING. THIS IS THE MOMENT IVE HAD PLANNED SINCE I FIRST IMAGINED THIS STORY!  
> I encourage you to re-read the excerpt from The Waste Land at the beginning because when I first named this fic the Sound Of Thunder and planned out this chapter I hadn’t yet decided that I would theme it after Eliot and honestly? The excerpt I chose for the chapter title fits in more ways than one. Plus Eliot is my favorite poet and deserves more appreciation in our modjern era.  
> THANK YOU for your incredible support thus far, it’s helped to relieve some of the fear I have about posting darker fics. The next update will be the last and will contain the final chapter and the epilogue, which will hopefully wrap up the story I want to tell with TSOT. I love you all and have a great evening!


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